5 Leadership Practices for Successful Hybrid Working

Whether we like it or not, hybrid and remote working is likely here to stay. There is now a huge amount of research covering the effectiveness of hybrid and remote work, and its impact on employee wellbeing and productivity, not to mention in the current cost of living crisis, the benefit of saving on commuting!

For many leaders, it is likely they have noticed the need for differing leadership styles and different needs for direction and support from team members based on varied work environments. Many leaders are experiencing the need to pivot their leadership styles across in-office, remote and hybrid setups.

Here are 5 basic practices that can help create a successful hybrid working environment.

1. Respect your workers

Hold all of your workers in a professional, respectful space. Operate with bias, work to increase the diversity of your team and ensure inclusivity. Avoid the usual workplace gossip, and regard each coworker and team member with as unbiased a view of their talents as possible.

2. Celebrate success

Celebrating the wins and successes is an important part of showing appreciation and recognising great performance. Gain an understanding of what motivates each team member and how they like to be recognised, and use this knowledge to celebrate their successes. There are many ways to recognise your team members, both publicly and privately. Be creative and consider both in-person and digital ways to recognise to fit into hybrid working.

3. Set healthy boundaries

For the days you are working in a dedicated office space together, set boundaries relating to space, respect and expectations. When working remotely, get team members to specify how best to contact them, e.g. by email, direct messages, channel updates, etc.

Respect focus time. The same goes for you as the leader, ensure your team know your communication preferences and boundaries.

Try not to communicate out-of-office hours, or if you happen to send emails late at night or early morning, ensure your colleagues know that this is your preference but you have no expectation of them to respond outside of working hours.

Finally, mind personal calendars. Respect people's time and other commitments. Be sure to mind meeting timelines and schedules, and pay close attention to people's availability in their calendars. Be a role model.

4. Promote creativity and innovation

As a leader, you should always try and engage in creative and innovative ways. Give team members the ability to be creative and innovative. Let them experiment and learn from mistakes. One of the most common barriers I hear people complain about in hybrid and remote working is that you cannot be collaborative - poppycock!

Be creative and innovative in the way you work, try new ways of working that promote collaboration and listen to feedback. Investigate digital tools that can help with digital collaboration, and ensure team members develop their technical skills in order to use these tools effectively. Again, be a role model.

5. Pivot your leadership style

Everyone adapts differently to different work environments. Therefore individuals will need different levels of direction and support. We are not talking here about supervision, micromanagement, or whether you trust your team members to work remotely.

Situation leadership, whereas a leader, you change the level of direction and support you provide to each team member and each of their objectives, is a powerful leadership style. Using the Hersey Blanchard model to determine the level of confidence and competence a team member has in each task, then tailoring the level of direction and support you provide, enables you to respect the individual, coach and empower them, without over-supervision and demeaning them through micromanagement.