Linked: Companies are just now starting to figure out remote work
It’s the rethink that some leaders are struggling with, isn’t it?
“Council said company leaders need to be very aware of the high potential for disconnection among employees. “Many of the leaders have leveraged proximity, versus really thinking about how they lead, how they engage, how they create a culture, and how they maintain a culture,” she said. Council pointed out that with the pandemic and remote work, many leaders are having to take a fresh look at how they really engage with people and build trust within their organizations.”
I think that’s really the struggle. If you’ve always led just by watching what your employees are doing, and assumed they were engaged because they talked to you, and each other, during the day, this remote working thing is kind of a challenge, huh?
Really smart managers weren’t relying on proximity before, having replaced that with measurable goals, communication channels, clear expectations, etc. Those are transferable no matter where everybody happens to be working from.
Smart managers have made the adjustment away from lazily assuming proximity would keep people engaged and have been busy adapting their management style to fit the new reality, and learning about the things the really smart managers already knew. Maybe they are even learning from those really smart managers.
And, not so smart managers are holding out for everyone going back to the office, and back to what they were doing before, having learned nothing.
Which kind of leader are you?
