Can you do Hard Work the Human Way?

If we thought that getting our people out of workplaces to work from home last year was a challenge, it appears that getting them back in is a bigger one.

Navigating the return to the workplace is one of the most pressing challenges facing the leaders I’m speaking with right now. Whilst a hybrid model of work sounds great, the reality of having different people in on different days adds more complexity to coordination and communication in teams and means more time, effort and energy from leaders.

And the reality is that returning to the workplace holds genuine fear of exposure for some people. Alongside this, we know that team members’ priorities and expectations of work and life have changed from their COVID experiences and there are a range of perspectives around the vaccine and its implications for the workplace.

How can leaders have the necessary conversations so that we can meet the needs of the business and the human needs of our team?

That’s what I chatted about with @RasmusHougaard, CEO of Potential Project when I interviewed him recently. Rasmus’s research suggests that leaders have been too focused on empathy and need to take a different approach to do hard work the human way.

He also gave me an excusive insight into his research findings of whether male or female leaders are more able to fulfil this kind of leadership and three ways we can bring it to life in our own leadership right now.

You can listen to our conversation here: Hard Work the Human Way