One of the opportunity created by this huge crisis is the use of smart-working on large scale.
It is nothing new. Since years we envision a new way of working thanks to digital technology, but many companies and managers were still very sceptic about this new way of managing the professional daily life.
The home-office is actually revolutionising not only the way of people working but also the way to manage teams. In the end, it moves the focus from control and authority to trust and authoritativeness. Means that persons has to work now based on clear goals and bilateral trust which brings us to the new leadership style.
We are now sitting in that future. We need to get in touch with our teams in a different way, talking to them through digital tools being able to be credible and to be listened in order to generate trust and motivation.
Empathy and clear directions are the key words in order to make this relationship working well.
A person sitting home, concentrated on its daily job can easily get frustrated or bored or, on contrary, can be more concentrate and effective. It only depends on the perception they have of the value that they are creating to the world and to the company with their work.
This has been my narrative during this crisis, I have seen my team stronger and more closed each other and to the company compared to normal office time.
I was actually also a bit surprise of this positive result and I was thinking that, maybe, this is also the impact of the work done to empower them during the last months and years.
So, value and common trust but especially clear direction on where to go. In addition, this needs to be communicated and reinforced every day because the personal non-direct communication created into the office is missing.
On the other side, what is very complicated to represent during the home-office time is the governance. Political and authority driven relationships are almost impossible. This is cleaning the sky from negative feeling and giving people the chance to concentrate on their job instead of receiving toxic energies from the surrounding. Of course, this is creating a very huge challenge to those persons that uses politic as major anchor instead of trust. Therefore, it should be quite simple for organisations to observe and challenge its management in order to understand where the resistance to change is sitting.
If it is true that the leadership needs to sit on trust and values, that Brands and organisations need to reflect their value internally in order to be credible externally, then this is the greatest opportunity we have in order to challenge the management and move a change.
I have been honestly amazed by reactions and actions coming from colleagues that I would never expected. Persons that have very traditional attitudes who have been able to re-discuss themselves in order to stay close to other people and to make a big step ahead toward the new way. It is not a matter of age or sector, it is about being able to challenge ourselves in order to take over the responsibility of our people. Because we have the responsibility to drive results in terms of business and this can happen only in cultivating our most important resource: persons.