The Future of Work Is The Future Of Leadership - Capability Invisibility

At the start of February, I wrote an article called “How To Successfully Lead Your Hybrid Team.”

I have also been doing a series of videos called “The Future of Work Is The Future of Leadership.”

The driver for both the article, the videos and this article is that the future of work is hybrid and the fact that most of our leaders are not ready, They have not done this before and are just not equipped.

If we do not change this situation, It is going to have devastating effect on our hybrid workforce. Increased stress, uncertainty, anxiety, fatigue and burnout will result and no employer should be prepared to accept that as a future state. No one.

This is uncharted territory. Let’s chart it.

Capability Invisibility

This is my hybrid leadership model that is evolving the more I write about it.

Capability invisibility is term coined via Deloitte to mean that when capability is not visible, employees can be given tasks they are ill-equipped for or their useful skills are not fully utilised.

I think there are two sides to the capability invisibility coin.

Leader visibility

As a leader, you need to know the capability of every member of your team. The wide range of capabilities may be less visible in virtual working environments.

Delegation

You should ensure that when you give an employee a task, you categorically know that they are equipped to carry it out.

This does not mean that the task will be a walk in the park. Good leaders know how far they can push their employees to develop and become the best they can be.

What you do not want to do is give an employee a task which makes them feel they have been hung out to dry. If they feel they have no idea how to approach it or accomplish it, it can lead to high levels of stress and anxiety.

If this is repeated over time, an employee can become fatigued and eventually burnout.

Therefore, when delegating a task, check that your employee is comfortable in taking on the task at hand.

This is often easier to note when there is physical face-to-face interaction and whilst the words may say yes, the body language says “no” or “not sure.” An employee’s confidence to take on a task may be harder to determine when working remotely.

Reassure them that there is no shame in stating that they are not comfortable. This is where last week’s topic of psychological safety comes in. None of your employees should fear speaking up, asking questions and talking about how they feel.

Discuss with them what it means to step outside of their comfort zone. If they never do it, they will not grow and develop. The comfort zone will always remain the same size.

Each time they step outside the comfort zone, they grow and develop and the comfort zone gets bigger every time.

Of upmost importance is for your employee to know that you are always there to provide support and remove obstacles when needed.

They are not going to drown because you have the lifebelt at the ready if they need it.

Also remember that delegation does not equate to empowerment.

Empowerment comes first. Ensure that when delegating tasks, your employees are empowered to undertake them.

When delegation occurs without empowerment, the task assigned is often dictated in a step-by-step fashion leaving no opportunity for your employee to creative or innovative. There will be little learning and little motivation.

When you empower your employee and then provide them with a task, you are also handing them decision-making rights and freedom to complete the task as they best see fit. Lots of learning and motivation.

Utilisation

You need to know the skills of your employees so that you can fully utilise them. There is nothing more demotivating to an employee to have worked hard to master a skill appropriate to their work, and not have it used.

Under utilisation is an engagement killer. Even your highest performers can become quickly disengaged if they don’t feel their skills and capabilities are being utilised in the best way.

Employees need to feel that their knowledge and experience are being put to good use.

Everyone needs an element of challenge to feel a sense of accomplishment and achievement. Without it they can switch off and disengage.

It can be harder to recognise disengagement due to underutilisation when employees are working remotely.

Your challenge is to recognise when an employee is feeling under-utilised before they become disengaged. They may be performing well on the tasks you have given them but are still bored as they have no challenges.

Good leaders need to ask and gather data on employee capabilities so that they can be effectively leveraged.

Employee visibility

Every member of the team should know what the capability and strengths of their co-workers are so that they can leverage them.

In a physical face-to-face environment, employees can be more aware of their colleagues skills and capabilities because they overhear conversations and witness interactions.

Consider conducting a regular audit of skills and making that data accessible across the organisation. In this way any employee can seek out the capabilities of colleagues.

Leverage

When the UK based customer service team receive correspondence written in Japanese, they could either turn to Google Translate or access the capability data and find a colleague who speaks Japanese.

When the IT team are approached for support with an application written in Python by a rogue programmer who has now left the company, they can search the capability data to determine if there is any potential assistance in-house.

The ability to leverage the capabilities of others in the organisation not only builds relationships and increase collaboration, but also boost employee engagement and motivation. All of these are crucial for employee wellbeing when working in hybrid teams.

LEARNING

When an employee wants to learn a new skills or improve an existing one, where do they turn?

According to a study conducted by Degreed, more workers turn to their colleagues first and to their managers second.

(https://hbr.org/2018/11/how-to-help-your-employees-learn-from-each-other)

Knowledge sharing across the organisations employees can be a powerful development tool that also build relationships and increases collaboration.

You are tapping into the expertise that is already present within your organisation. You hire smart people so why not use them to share their expertise with others.

Employees may not be as aware of a colleague who could help them develop a certain skill when they are working remotely, so being able to tap into capability data enables them to reach out for learning and development.

Summary

Making employee capability visible across the organisation has many benefits including skills gap analysis.

In hybrid teams its power is in its ability to empower employees to connect, collaborate and build relationships.