The events of 2020 and 2021 raised the stakes due to a greater awareness of the workplace factors that contribute to poor mental health. Unfortunately, not enough has been done to address the issue. Employers must connect what they say to what they do. It is time to get serious about employee mental health. Leaders of hybrid teams must be cognisant of the mental health and wellbeing of all of their team members as well as their own wellbeing.

When many workers had to work from home for the first time, there was a mad scramble to acquire and utilise technology that would allow everyone to continue to connect, communicate, and collaborate across various locations.

Organisations now need a secure, long-term solution, that can support any number of teams in any location, whilst providing a single source of truth from a unified platform. Leaders should be investing in technology that helps, not hinders. Leaders need to be technology-savvy and enable their hybrid team.

Bosses (note my deliberate avoidance of the term ‘leader’) who want to continue to believe that productivity can be measured by the hours someone sits at a desk and that the best ways to get results is through micromanagement, are on the verge of extinction.

Just like the dinosaurs who did not have the necessary characteristics to survive in a changed environment or adapt to a new one, these bosses will become extinct. The catastrophic event leading to their demise may not be an asteroid or climate change, but a change in the way we work – a hybrid operating model.

Last week we looked at the leadership challenge and the response starting with defining ‘good leadership’ in your organisation. This positions you for hiring and promoting good leaders. I have classified the leadership capabilities into capacities and competencies.

We explored the seven capacities I believe good leaders possess. This week we will explore the seven competencies.

In the third newsletter in the “Future of Work Redesigned” we are exploring the leadership point on the compass.

Most people become leaders in their mid-to late 20s, but most do not receive any formal training until their late 30s and early 40s. This is possibly two decades in which those in leadership roles within organisations have had little support, development, coaching, or training.

The situation is worsened when you think that this pattern has been repeated for generations upon generations of “leaders”, which means that the only role models these new “leaders” have had are the bad bosses that have gone before them. And so, the cycle perpetuates.

The challenge is to break this cycle and prepare leaders now for the future of work. Whatever skills leaders have today will not be enough to lead a highly performing hybrid team. As the saying goes what got you here, won’t get you there.

The challenge is that there is a lack of strategy regarding the future of work in many organisations. There is no clear direction. Many leaders seem hesitant to take bold steps and are waiting for the dust to settle so they can see what a post-pandemic “normal” looks like. The issue is, we are nearly 2 years in from the onset of the pandemic with no clear idea of what a post-pandemic “normal” will look like and that cannot be a reason not to formulate a strategy.

There are six points on my Future of Work Redesigned compass. These are the six directions in which you must head if you are going to redesign the future of work in your organisation.

Without a good culture in the organisation, the benefits of hybrid working will not be realised. Culture is critical to company success and has direct impact on effectiveness, revenue growth, talent retention and attraction.

The future of work is hybrid. Period. This is an operating model that has employees working from an office and remotely that makes business sense. There are many variations of the model and no one-size-fits-all approach.

This will mean a reconstruction of the company culture. The culture must embrace employees working in many different locations. Whilst this could be one of the biggest opportunities afforded to leaders to reconstruct the company culture but could also be one of the biggest challenges.

As we move into 2022, I thought a little inspiration might be called for. Over the years as I have written about leadership, I have uncovered some inspirational stories that depict leadership as it should be. Often, it emerges from the most surprising places and circumstances. Some of these names you will know and some you will not.

In this article I share the second five of 10 inspirational stories.

As we move into 2022, I thought a little inspiration might be called for. Over the years as I have written about leadership, I have uncovered some inspirational stories that depict leadership as it should be. Often, it emerges from the most surprising places and circumstances. Some of these names you will know and some you will not.

Last week my article explored the impact of mistrust in the workplace and the damage the pandemic has done to leader and employee trust.

Failure to intentionally build and improve trust in the workplace will not only impact your organisations culture but you will actively sabotage your brand and reputation, productivity, motivation, engagement, and talent retention.

The choice is yours. Here are 10 actions you can start to take today.

Welcome to 2022. During 2021 I wrote and spoke about leadership, workforce resilience, and change.

Subtopics included leadership capability uplift to lead high performing hybrid teams, psychological safety, employee mental health and wellbeing, employee value proposition, empathetic leaders, employee empowerment and autonomy, equity and inclusion, employee attraction and retention, and organisations becoming more humanistic.

At the foundation of all these subjects and the bedrock on which they all reside is TRUST.

In 2021 I was honoured to be invited to speak at Atlassian Team 2021.

The recording of my 25 minute session entitled “The Future of Service Management - Realised With Resilience” is now available.

As we start 2022, none the wiser of what it will look like as we did at the start of 2021, I thought I would take a look at the top 5 articles I wrote during last year which grabbed people’s attention.

I have listed the top 5 based on the number of reactions the articles received on Linkedin rather than the number of views. That is, I have counted the ones readers took the time out to like, celebrate, support, love, found insightful or made readers curious.

All leaders should have employee mental wellbeing as the priority. Not one of many priorities but the priority. Mind Share Partners say that in 2019 employers were just grasping the prevalence of the health challenges in the workplace. In 2020, mental health went from a nice-to-have to a true business imperative. In 2021, the stakes were raised even higher thanks to a greater awareness of the workplace factors that contribute to poor mental health. Unfortunately, employers have not done enough to address the issue. 2022 is the time to connect what they say to what they do.

As a leader of a hybrid team your ability to run effective hybrid meetings where some of your participants are physically co-located whilst others are remote will be paramount to employee engagement and team performance.

Truly effective hybrid meetings are not just the result of running a meeting where participants are distributed across many locations in the same way you did when everyone was physically present in the same room.

There is added complexity. When all the participants are in-person, or all of the participants are virtual, there is a level playing field. When there is a mix of both, the remote participants quickly become the second-class citizen unless the meeting facilitator knows how to run an effective hybrid meeting,

While effective communication has always been an important skill for leaders, the leaders of hybrid teams need to be exceptional communicators.

The biggest challenge to communication is the lack of non-verbal communication cues.

In the absence of these clues, leaders should practice more mindful communication.

Leaders also need to intentionally promote cross-functional collaboration. Research has shown that employees working remotely increase their in-team collaboration whilst cross-team collaboration decreases. This limits information exchange and knowledge sharing.

Leaders show emotional support for their employees by offering genuine encouragement, reassurance, and compassion.

The repercussions of the pandemic will be felt for some time to come, and everyone will have different experiences and extenuating circumstances. Emotional support for every employee, wherever they are located is paramount. It helps them overcome the challenges they may be facing currently and help them deal with future challenges as well.

Often those working remotely feel less cared for than those in the immediate proximity of a leader. That cannot be allowed to be a new reality.

Emotional support comes from leaders who lead with vulnerability, empathy and compassion and have the wellbeing of every employee as an overarching priority.

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 teams knows (a) when you are available for them (b) you are visible as their leader.

Availability and visibility are paramount to avoid team members feeling isolated, excluded and unsupported. But being available and visibly does not mean ‘always on.’ You cannot be both available and visible if you are a bottleneck.

The great wave of resignations is being driven by what I have called The Great Realisation. The Great Realisation is the time for reflection employees have had whilst being bunkered down and adjusting to the changes and uncertainties foisted upon them during the COVID-19 pandemic.

They have reflected on what they want from life and work, and many have realised that they deserve more from their employer. The numbers speak for themselves.

This is how employers are responding. Which one are you?

• The ostriches

• The wishful thinkers

• The minimalists

• The misdirected

• The employers of choice