Hybrid leadership is a style for now and for the future, and don’t expect it to go anywhere! Don’t get left behind in this leadership style of the future. But some may still be skeptical about adopting this style of leadership into the role of leaders at their organisation. What is there to gain from hybrid leadership and how can it benefit your organisation and employees?

 

What are the upsides of Hybrid Leadership?  

Hybrid Leadership has become the new style of leadership due to the new work climate created by the global pandemic. It is evident that with this ever-changing work shift, hybrid working isn't going anywhere! There are a few upsides to adopting a hybrid leadership style: more room for a leader to maintain an empathetic approach, a more flexible way of managing and guiding a team, enabling more personal development for your teams, expanding the use and ways of hybrid communication and helping employees build autonomy and flexibility. In research done by GoodHabitz and Markteffect, 50% of employees in the UK feel that their managers possess the right skills to lead them into the future of work. However, there is still a desire from employees to have their leaders work on some fundamental skills, one of which is communication skills. The need to have leaders reskill or upskill themselves in their communication skills can help to ensure a more positive communication dialogue between leader and employee.  

Communication is one of the most important skills that can lend itself to the success of hybrid leadership. There is no way to avoid it! Since employees and leaders will not always be face to face or working in the same room (or even the same country), it is imperative that learning how to better communicate will help bring leader and employee closer together. By enhancing these skills, it can help with sharing feedback over a video call, sending an email to explain a new process, or keeping in touch with their employee to check-in, to name a few examples.

 

What is there to gain for the organisation?  

Your organisation has a huge advantage if your leaders can adopt a hybrid leadership style. Why is that? This style encourages leaders to have to reshape the way they are managing their teams and creates an environment in which leaders have no choice but to have to move towards the future. An organisation should be focusing on ways to help their leaders work towards becoming future-proof leaders. This means that they can adapt and adopt new and alternative ways of working, thinking and leading, and whatever else the situation might bring on them. Additionally, another win for an organisation is that hybrid leadership can help encourage and create more team spirit within their teams and boost employee engagement. Since leaders will be taking on a more ‘coaching’ role versus a managerial role, employees are more likely to take more control of themselves in a personal and professional manner. For example, leaders that would be more inclined to give employees more autonomy in the way that they do their job or encourage personal development to see a growth in their employees and in their job role. This investment into your employees strengthens your employee’s engagement and can lead to a more successful work environment.   

 

How does hybrid leadership help employees? 

According to research by GoodHabitz and Markteffect, 71% of employees in the UK feel adequately supported by their team leader while working in a hybrid environment. This positive statistic should be celebrated! Employees are, after all, one of the most important assets to the success of your business. Nevertheless, it doesn’t mean that leaders can sit back and relax. As mentioned previously, communication skills are one of the skillsets that employees are looking for from their leaders. A study by EY shows that 41% of employees also want their manager to engage in an honest and personal conversation about their mental health. Employees are in search of leaders who show empathy and a leader that cares for the well-being (both mental and physical) of their employees as well. Hybrid leadership, when done correctly, can lend itself to a more autonomous and flexible way of working for employees. This gives the employees the opportunity to feel more in control of themselves and their role without the control and micromanagement of someone over them. If employees don’t have the proper leader ahead of them, they can easily become uninterested, demotivated, and could eventually lead to turnover. Overall, employees in the UK seem pleased with their managers in a hybrid setting, but there is always room for growth and development for leaders.

There are many advantages to adopting this leadership style in your workplace and there are plenty of ways of it can be implemented. You can learn more about this and hear from experts on the subject by attending our online event on hybrid leadership. Interested in learning more about hybrid leadership in the United Kingdom? Download our latest Research Report where we share our findings on how UK employees feel about hybrid leadership.  

 

Nicole Raad 

Marketing Specialist, GoodHabitz