Leaders must be available and visible to the hybrid team

See and be seen

This article explores the ‘available and visible’ element of my ‘leading hybrid teams’ model.

This model highlights the areas in which leadership competency needs to be elevated to successfully lead high performing hybrid teams.

As a leader of a hybrid team where you and your team could be working from anywhere at any time, how do you ensure that your team knows (a) when you are available for them and (b) visible as their leader.

Available

Availability when leading any team is an imperative. When leading a hybrid team with remote workers it is non-negotiable.

Every leader has to be there for the team when they need you. You must be accessible.

You cannot be a bottleneck for the team, especially when you are working remotely.

If you are a bottleneck, it could be that your team is coming to you with every decision that needs to be made and with the smallest things that really do not warrant your attention. So, before we explore how to make sure your team know you are available, how can you increase your availability by removing the noise you are dealing with.

Avoid the bottleneck

Regular check-ins

Good leaders have regular check-ins with every member of their team. These check-ins should be scheduled and the time in the calendar treated as sacred.  The one-on-one that gets constantly cancelled or moved tells your employee that they are not high on your list of priorities.

Having a regular one-on-one provides the opportunity for your team members to connect and let you know if they need your support, your help to remove obstacles or your advice and guidance.

When they know they have a one-on-one meeting with you next week, they may wait to reach out to you at that meeting.

Autonomy

If you empower your employees and provide them with the autonomy to make decisions within certain parameters and to undertake a task as they see fit, they will not come to you for every decision.

I wrote about this in a previous article for Remote Report about empowerment.

Providing autonomy is not management by abdication. You must ensure every member of the team knows you are available to support them when they need you, but they do not need you to manage how they carry out their work.

A colleague of mine, James, who was acting as an operations manager found his time hijacked when the team where all forced to work remotely. He was receiving messages, emails and phone calls for the smallest decisions which really did not need his attention. When in the office an employee could just shout “I’m about to do run the backup, is that ok?” and James could just nod his approval. All of a sudden, those nods turned into emails, texts, and calls. Needing some thinking time, James blocked out an afternoon in his calendar and let the team know that he would be unavailable for the afternoon unless a matter was urgent and warranting his attention. He received no emails, no texts, and no calls yet operations kept running! He had encouraged his team to think for themselves and provided them with the autonomy to do so. He continued to do more of the same with great results. 

Team meetings

Scheduling an all-team meeting on a regular basis can also reduce the bottleneck. If each person shares what they are working on, what they have accomplished since the last meeting and what they plan to work on before the next meeting, other members of the team can reach out and offer their support and assistance if they have done something similar in the past. The team can support each other, and they do not have to rely on you. If a team member raises a challenge or problem they are facing, others can offer their help.

I have an article coming up in the future about running effective hybrid meetings.

Being accessible

So, how do you make yourself available and accessible without being on call 24x7 and unable to do all of the other things you need to do as a leader.

Regardless of the how you do it, you must remember that it matters. Getting your accessibility and availability right has a massive impact. An Oracle study of over 5000 employees found that an accessible and approachable leader inspires greater confidence, and performance.

It is also important to remember that you are both available and accessible.

When you are available, you put your employees on your list of priorities. You leave time in your calendar for unscheduled conversations. You make it clear to your employees how you can be reached outside of the regular one-on-one meetings you have with them. You do not reschedule a one-on-one meeting unless absolutely necessary. If you keep moving or cancelling these meetings, you are sending a message to your employee that they are not valued or high on your list of priorities. This will kill morale.

When you are accessible, you create an environment of psychological safety so that your employees feel free to speak up, ask questions and challenge without fear of negative repercussions or reprisal. You encourage open and honest conversation and lead by example. You are authentic in your conversation and prepared to share your own vulnerabilities. You lead with empathy and are an active listener. In addition to providing feedback, you actively seek it out and act upon what you hear.

When you are both available and accessible, your employee levels of engagement, motivation, and performance increase. 

Rules of engagement

You can manage your availability by establishing some rules of engagement. Remote work becomes more efficient and satisfying when you set expectations for the frequency, means, and ideal timing of communication for your teams.

For example, “We will use videoconferencing for daily check-in meetings, but we will use IM when something is urgent.” “We will use email for non-urgent matters, and I will check my inbox at the start and end of the day.”

Also, establish expectations on the best times of day for team members to reach you and for you to reach each team member.

Visible

Leaders at every level of your organisation have to be visible. This is even more important when you are leading remote teams. Not all employees are passing your desk or office as they navigate the company corridors.

Employees in an office can see the captain and his or her officers steering the ship through the storm and beyond. When employees are working remotely and they cannot see who is steering the ship, it can lead to feelings of disconnection, isolation, stress, and anxiety.

All leaders must connect with their employees regardless of their location. You need to create an authentic and human connection.

When leaders become invisible it can be dangerous. When employees lose ‘sight’ of their leaders it can result in an ‘us’ and ‘’them’ mindset – leaders and everyone else.

CEO Updates and Ask Me Anything Tours

In an article for Forbes, Kevin Kruse shared how technology company Resultant had overcome the invisibility by instituting weekly CEO updates as ‘fire-side’ chats renamed ‘computer-side’ chats. The CEO shares important updates, explains company decisions, relays customer success stories, updates on the market, and perspectives on past and current events. Louonna Kachur, senior VP of HR, said:

"Computer-side chats have allowed everyone inside the organization to get to know their CEO as a human and in turn allowed leadership to connect with the audience in a way that hopefully creates connection points for later, too. It has changed how we work." 

Prior to the pandemic, Kachur would sit in a conference room on Thursday so anyone could pop by and ask questions or have a chat. This was replicated in the virtual environment by opening up an online chat room where anyone can pop in.

Another initiative to increase visibility comes from employee engagement measurement company Emplify. 

Emplify set up a “Ask Me Anything’ tour conducted by senior executives. Once a month, each senior leader meets for 15 minutes with a department on a rotating basis. During the15 minutes, employees can ask the visiting executive any question.

Summary

It is critical that your people know that you are available when they need your support or advice. It is imperative that you are visible to your employees, and they can see you steering the ship whether they are in the engine room, in the canteen, in the laundry, in the garage or in the bedroom.