4 "New" Leadership Tasks for 2022

Leading a Digital First Workforce Is A Different Game

What an interesting year 2022 has been!

As several organizations enter the third year (or more) of working a digital first world, there is 'bad' news and 'good' news.

The "bad news" (at least for some managers) is that employee preference for flexibility has become stronger.

Now if you are a leader in an IT firm in India, this may be frustrating.

As you see employees return to offices in other organizations, you may be be wistful as you remember simpler times. Times when you could simply walk around the floor and answer questions, supervise work, or provide guidance.

Yet the shift in employee expectations is significant. And goes all the way to the top.

Unqbe 's research on shifting employee expectations shows an interesting pattern.

When we ask senior/ top leaders in formal meetings about flexibility, many voice a strong desire to get people 'back to the office'. Yet we also lead senior-top leadership programs on 'The Future of Work'. Our pre-program surveys (anonymous) also reveal that about 75% of senior/ top leaders value flexibility personally.

(Above Source: Future Forum Pulse Report here: https://futureforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Future-Forum-Pulse-Report-Summer-2022.pdf)

So what is the catch?

Senior/ Top leaders worry about the organizational impact of largely remote working. They worry about the loss of social capital, innovation, belongingness. (And all for all the right reasons, in our view).

So what is the way ahead?

Well, the 'good news' is that we are beginning to get a glimpse of what strong leadership looks like in a digital first organization. And the leadership tasks certainly looks different.

As research on successful ways to manage a remote-hybrid workplace begins to emerge. One thing is clear.

"The Role of the Manager Becomes Even More Critical"

But the job itself changes.

A Manager Isn't the Same Job Anymore!

Here are 4 new tasks that become part of a manager's job in a "digital-first" organization.

1. Building Broader Connections
2. Providing Wider Organizational Visibility
3. Radical Transparency
4. Inclusion (It means more than you realise)

1. Building Broader Connections:

One of the casualties of extended remote work has been the drop in average network size. While this is true of pretty much everyone (including senior people), it is even more true for employees in junior roles.

Unqbe's research over the past few months suggests that early career employees and senior employees view network creation rather differently.

Senior new joiners tend to take the task of building an organizational network rather seriously. They often start with a list of people within the organization they must meet. Their past experience and broader organization perspective allows them to do this rather effectively.

On the other hand, the majority of early career employees (at entry levels) do not realise the importance of a network outside their immediate work group. Therefore few know people who they do not directly work with.

For 'digital-first' organizations this is a problem.

Social capital, (or the vibrancy of groups and networks) has a direct connection with how quickly work gets done, and information flows.

So the first "new" task for managers in a digital first culture is encouraging connections between work-groups.

This can be done both through opportunities for planned face to face interactions when possible, and using technology at other times. (Apps such as The Watercooler, Donut are filling in this very important gap in our existing ways of work).

You can also of course do this traditionally by giving team members lists of other teams they should try and connect with. Or even organizing events designed to enable meetings between teams

While it is likely that over time different organizations will adopt different tools to make this happen, what is important is the recognition that this is a new task for managers.

2. Providing Wider Organization Visibility

Research by GitLabs, one of the largest fully remote organizations suggests (unsurprisingly I should add) that Visibility builds belongingness. Visibility here means an understanding of the big organizational picture.

What is being done in other teams? How does the organizations strategy connect with work in different teams? What is the culture? How is it lived every day? What is "our way" of thinking and problem solving?

An understanding of the larger picture is key to belonging.

Research by Unqbe earlier this year showed that without conscious focus, most junior-mid level employees in IT firms had a very narrow understanding of what the organization stood for. In fact most were focused almost entirely on their own work-group and the set of tasks they were responsible for,

"I work for my laptop" New Joiner in Technology

This of course means a very conscious effort to integrate and communicate the 'big picture'. Unqbe's research with leading IT firms suggests that while this can be done through many different forums, the manager's role is critical. Many employees do not participate in townhalls or ask-me-anything sessions, but they do pay close attention to what their manager is saying.

3. Radical Transparency

Remember the days when we became masters at reading 'nuance' into our managers body language and tone of voice? Well with a remote-hybrid workforce--that is not going to work.

Remote-Hybrid workers need clear and transparent communication to function.

Why radical? Because it is not just about moments of 'formal communication'. It is instead about also documenting and sharing 'informal communication'.

Say you and a colleague met up for lunch and talked about a bunch of ideas. In the traditional styles of management, that would be something that you would keep between the two of you. Even if you didnt intend to keep it 'secret', chances are you would not think of sharing information gathered in an informal meeting with the other team members.

GitLabs, have discovered that this information asymmetry kills the spirit of a digital first workplace.

Therefore even the contents of informal meetings are shared with others around. They can contribute or learn from the ideas. By recording and sharing far more than what one would ordinarily think of doing, they keep the spirit of a 'remote first' workplace alive.

4. Inclusion

Now this is a big one.

For the past decade, inclusion has been seen largely in the context of organizations DEI efforts. How should an organization enable better opportunities and experiences for minorities?

In a digital first workplace, enabling those who work largely remotely to feel as included as those who work largely from office or in hybrid settings becomes the new frontier of inclusion.

At least for the untrained manager--face time still matters.

Research done at Stanford, about a decade ago, showed (rather worryingly) that even when performance metrics are clear and unambiguous, managers tend to give better career opportunities to those who they meet more often.

And that's not all, minorities and under-represented groups opt for flexibility even more frequently.

Therefore, unless managers are 'consciously inclusive', an organization's efforts to promote diversity will do far worse in a remote-hybrid environment.

In August 2022, these are 4 new emerging skills for leaders of a 'digital-first' workplace. As we learn more, we will share more. So stay tuned!

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(About me: I lead Unqbe, a research and advisory firm around the Future of Work. We partner with clients to help them understand change through commissioned research. And we help leadership teams build Workplace 2.0 with a current focus on re-building social capital; designing the hybrid workplace; and introducing a future-friendly inclusive leadership style)