Thought Leadership
Bend Before You Break: The Secret of Great Leaders Everywhere
Servant leadership. Coaching. Transformational. Democratic. Bureaucratic. Becoming a manager is as much about discovering your style of leadership as it is learning to oversee people’s workloads and guiding a team towards a shared goal.
You might even like to cultivate a reputation as one type of leader or another. Being known for a particular style can attract people to want to work with you, or give you recognition with the C-suite.
However, there is a problem with settling down one managerial path and honing your style with a single-minded focus. You lose out on the power of flexibility. Flexible leaders are able to change their style or approach strategically and with relative comfort in order to meet challenges or unpredictable circumstances.
What Flexible Leadership Looks Like Today
Given the world we now work in, flexible leadership might just be the key to not just surviving, but thriving as a people manager for the long-term.
With the global shift to remote work, we are currently witnessing some of the most impactful examples of flexible leadership at scale. Companies like Atlassian, Salesforce, Spotify and so many more are instituting permanent changes to their work location policies as a result of widespread remote work. Teams have learned to execute on projects and collaborate in the midst of children joining Zoom calls, people taking unexpected days off, or power or internet outages causing major disruptions.
How and Why Leaders Should Priortise Wellness Within Their Remote Teams
What if you discovered that your remote employees are likely feeling more isolated, stressed, anxious, and emotionally drained than ever before?
According to a global study across more than 10 industries by Qualtrics and SAP during the spring of 2020, 75% of people said they feel more socially isolated, 67% of people reported higher stress, 57% are feeling greater anxiety, and 53% say they feel more emotionally exhausted.
While it’s not the most chipper of statistics and hopefully isn’t the case for your team—it’s certainly the truth for many since the outbreak of the pandemic. Now that we’re a full year into the pandemic with many never having returned to the office, these percentages have likely increased even more.
In past years, companies have often separated work and topics surrounding mental health, claiming those areas were too personal or even ‘taboo’ to discuss with direct reports. However, work is where people spend most of their time (yes, even when remote) and has a huge impact on their mental, physical, and emotional wellness. Throw a global pandemic, sudden transitions to distributed work, and global political turmoil into the mix, and it’s easy to understand why employees need extra support—especially from their leadership teams.
