Leadership in a Distributed Environment – Being There When You Are Not There
The recent pandemic has definitely taught us what VUCA means – Volatile, Uncertain, Complex,? Ambiguous. But many of us also learnt that it stands for Vision, Understanding, Clarity and Agility.?
While working & conducting my studies on future of work and competencies required by leaders in? future, thinking about how the pandemic has impacted us and will bring what kinds of challenges I? started delving deeper into the topic of leadership in a distributed environment.?
In an environment when many areas were under lockdown, people were at home but still needed to? support and run the business, since most of the operations went from centralized to distributed? managed. Leaders were not present with teams but had to lead them, guide them, provide direction? and support them to deliver results.?
Distributed means dispersed over time and space. The businesses operate in different parts of the? globe in physical space and at different times.?
In future this will become a very critical competency for Leaders to learn to engage with people who? are geographically and organizationally distributed; medium of meetings may change from in-person? to virtual to holographic – Being There when You are Not There?
The concept of Meeting will change in future. The in-person meeting will have to be redefined basis? different context. The different context would be –?
Leadership presence will be exhibited by wide mix of media and in person meetings in varied? combinations. Cultures will have to be created which will be amplified through the usage of mix? media reality that will emerge over the next few years.
Nowadays kids are very apt in handling this kind of complexity. How do they do it – it’s through? Gaming. They use Artificial Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (MR) to play games? and they are able to adapt to it flawlessly. We adults will have to learn from kids on how to operate? in a Blended Reality and leverage Mix Media.?
Leaders will have to make their presence felt, even if they are not there. AR, VR and MR will create? Blended Reality. Leaders who do not have their Multi-Media presence, this is something they will? have to build to be present everywhere even if they are not present.?
Systems which provide an alternate to in-person meetings are designed with an assumption that the? in-person meeting can be replicated by providing closer virtual meeting. Whereas the aim should be? of being better than in person. Irrespective of the medium of interaction, the leaders should be able? to make a bigger and effective impact than being in person. A Leadership style coming from the??
perspective of Strength & Humility as competencies will help exuberate the impact.?
Leaders will have to evolve personal communication strategy and style to match the different? options of distance/space and time. With this they will have to have a skill development plan. The? Human Resource division will have to understand this and build in the leadership development plan accordingly.?
This will help the leaders to communicate better the Vision, provide better Understanding & Clarity? and help teams to operate with Agility.?
Author: Avishkar Mehrotra