Remote leadership is not a new thing but working from home, hybrid work and teams combining different working environments is still in constant evolution. Did you know that 1 out of 4 employees are already preparing to look for a new employment opportunity? And that almost half of the workers globally are considering leaving their current employers by the end of the year? (Source: McKinsey “It’s time for leaders to get real about hybrid” July 2021)
Did you know that having a bad boss continues to be the number 1 reason why people leave their jobs?
What we have found is that your leaders are fearful of the control they have lost with remote working, this is a similar experience to the one that new managers have. Before managing people, they are in control because their result depends 100 percent on them, but when they start managing people now it’s not 100 percent on them and that creates a threat in the brain for new managers. “I am now not in control of my results which might affect my performance, credibility, status, etc.”
When they manage people in the office they are “watching”, they can see people working or pretending to work and that gives a sense of control. But when they cannot “watch” people again a threat to the brain creates fear of control loss.
They also are feeling disconnected from their teams, losing engagement with people and suffering social deterioration and sense of belonging in their teams. Those are all potential risks that are going to be riskier for the leader that is not prepared with the tools to engage better with their teams local or remote.
Leaders are facing the “Great Attrition” with record raising turnover losing key people. Because the last 18 months showed people that they can work and produce from home and that it not only works but also brought a lot of things that they want to continue having in their lives. Like more family contact, ability to organize their time with other home chores, work as I travel and many others. The keyword today is FLEXIBILITY.
We also have found that leaders are not respecting working boundaries for them and others, they are dealing with “zoom fatigue” and exhausted employees, not sure about how the new working arrangements will work and feeling near completely burned out.
The mistake they make is thinking that they need to define the new reality when what they need is extreme listening, engagement and enable sharing to co-create new team dynamics.
Now more than ever the people smart leader with a high level of emotional skills is needed to work with their people so that they can restore CONNECTION, TRUST and INSPIRE and RETAIN people.
