We have entered a new era for leadership.

As we emerge from the pandemic, one thing is clear: we’ll never work in the same way as before. While some people prefer to continue working at home, others are keen to get back to the office – which is leading many businesses to adopt a hybrid workforce model.

Allowing employees to work in a flexible way has obvious benefits such as improved productivity, increased employee satisfaction, and better retention. However, with this transition to the hybrid working age, leaders will have a new set of challenges to contend with. 

As we sail through these un-chartered waters, leaders will need to be equipped with new kinds of leadership skills and styles to succeed in this significantly transformed era of work.

Here are 5 of the skills that leaders require in the new era of work.

Better Communication

In this new world of work, the importance of communication can’t be overstated, especially when leading a hybrid team. Leaders need to be open, honest, clear, authentic and maintain regular communication. Successful leaders communicate trust and respect, are good listeners, inquire about workload, provide guidance and support, and proceed without micromanaging – they empower their staff.

With this new era of “hybrid teams” as a leader, you will also have to adjust your communication as some of your staff will be based in your office, and others could be based remotely or at home. You will need to ensure you have clear and also fair lines of communication with all employees so that every team member feels equally included in your organisation’s mission and goals.

Authenticity

Your leadership approach shouldn’t be cold and impersonal – it should feel human and authentic. Authentic leaders are genuinely self-aware and inspire loyalty and trust among their employees, by consistently being who they really are. They develop a sense of belonging, shared values, and success.

As a leader, you should be open and honest about the challenges and opportunities you are facing as a leader and as a company. This authenticity creates a safe space for your team to do the same.

Leaders should also show vulnerability – a quality that at first might not seem obviously helpful to leadership. However, showing your vulnerability and opening up to your employees about your apprehensions, feelings, and goals could actually help to set an essential example of honesty and trust within the company. On top of this, being vulnerable as a leader also helps to make you more relatable and approachable, while also letting your team members know that it’s ok to be authentically themselves.

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is a vital leadership skill in the new era of work. Emotional intelligence (sometimes called EQ or EI) is the ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathise with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflict.

As well as this strong understanding of your own emotions, an emotionally intelligent leader will also have a strong understanding of other people’s emotions. Therefore, there’s a close relationship between emotional intelligence, compassion, and empathy in the most successful leaders.

The emotional skills that make up our EQ will be essential if leaders are to make the best decisions and build positive and supportive relationships, amongst the constant unpredictability, change, and instability of the post-pandemic world of work.

Agile & Adaptive Mindset

It’s not a new concept that organisations and their leaders need to be able to adapt to continuous change. From advancements in digital and technology to changes in cultural, and market trends, leaders have always needed to propel organisations to innovate and anticipate the ever-changing landscape.

However, the Covid-19 pandemic has challenged the survival of every organisation and has resulted in adaptability in leaders to no longer be desirable; but essential.

An adaptive leader is someone who can change their behaviour in response to changes in a situation. These leaders are flexible, show resilience when things don’t go as planned and can bounce back from failure – seeing it as an opportunity to learn.

With so many new changes and uncertainties that will inevitably arise, leaders will need to continue taking an agile and adaptable approach, combining flexible thinking with solid planning.

Leaders who are agile and adaptable, and who have the confidence and conviction to pivot plans and take a fluid approach where needed, are more likely going to succeed in this rapidly changing world of work.

Inclusive

One main change that the Covid-19 pandemic has brought to the new world of work is an increase in hybrid teams. The post-pandemic world will see teams, for essentially the first time, being truly split across both virtual and physical spaces, across different locations and even countries. This will make it more difficult for leaders to build inclusive and connected teams, which could potentially increase feelings of disconnection and lower job satisfaction.

Because of this, leaders must understand their part in creating an inclusive culture. They need to lead their teams inclusively, ensuring every member of the team feels they are of value. Leaders need to ensure they truly understand and appreciate what individuals need from their team – this could be support, connection, communication, or innovation.

To ensure you are leading your hybrid teams inclusively you should also set expectations and make accountability clear to all your workers while discouraging a ‘them and us’ culture, where tensions might arise between remote and office-based staff.

Inclusive leaders provide a compelling vision that inspires diversity of thinking. These leaders accept everyone without bias, listen to the opinions of diverse groups, and show high levels of empathy.

Why do these skills matter?

Leaders need to drive business growth and success post-pandemic, while also deliberating how they preserve the benefits of human contact in a more virtual world. The need for empathy and care is intensified by the virtual, isolated world we find ourselves in where employees’ physical and mental health is being tried and tested. Leaders need to focus on creating a purpose that unites and motivates their workers, while also keeping up with the pace of change and innovation.

Leaders who want their organisations to boom must focus on building strong constructive norms that encourage and empower people to achieve their best – by leading with authenticity, showing empathy for employees, enabling clear lines of communication, being more adaptive and agile, and encouraging an inclusive workforce.

By thinking differently, observing, listening, responding to employees, and adapting to them in an agile way, leaders can proactively shape the ways of working and culture, create a productive, unbiased hybrid workforce, and lead their teams into a brighter and more positive future of work.