The benefits of hybrid leadership

What are the upsides of Hybrid Leadership?

Hybrid Leadership has become the new style of leadership thanks to the new work climate created by the global pandemic. It is evident that with this ever-changing work shift, hybrid working isn't going anywhere! There are a few upsides to adopting a hybrid leadership style: a more flexible way of managing a team, more room for a leader to maintain an empathic approach, proactively enable more personal development for your teams, expand the use and ways of hybrid communication and help employees build autonomy and flexibility.

In research done by GoodHabitz and Markteffect, ¼ employees feel that they are now closer with their team lead due to the implementation of hybrid leadership. The need to have practice these new communication skills gives leaders the chance to reskill or upskill themselves to ensure a more positive communication dialogue. Communication is one of the most important skills that can lend itself to the success and positive effects of hybrid leadership. There is no way to avoid it! Since employees and leaders will not always be face to face or working in the same room (or even same country), it is imperative that learning how to communication (whether in calls or in emails) is crucial.

What is there to gain for the organisation?

Your organisation has a huge advantage if your leaders can adopt a hybrid leadership style. Why is that? This style encourages leaders to have to reshape the way they are managing their teams and creates an environment in which leaders have no choice but to have to move towards the future. An organisation should be focusing on ways to help their organisations work towards becoming future-proof leaders, meaning that they are able to adapt and adopt new and alternative ways of working, thinking and leading, whatever the situation might bring on them. Additionally, another win for an organisation is that hybrid leadership can help encourage and create more team spirit in their teams.

Employee engagement can also be another benefit of hybrid leadership for an organisation. Since leaders will be taking on a more ‘çoaching’ role versus a managerial role, employees are more likely to take more control of themselves in a personal and professional manner. For example, leaders would be more inclined to give employees more autonomy in the way that they do their job or encourage personal development for employees to see a growth in themselves and in their job role. This investment into your employees strengthens your employees engagement and can lead to a more successful work environment.

How does hybrid leadership help employees?

According to research by GoodHabitz and Markteffect, 70% of employees in the UK feel that their team lead knows how to lead their teams within a hybrid setting. This positive statistic shows that employees are feeling good about the way that leaders are adopting a hybrid leadership style. Employees are after all, one of the most important assets to the success of your business and without the proper leader ahead of them, they can easily become uninterested, demotivated and could eventually lead to turnover. A study by EY shows that 41% of employees want their manager to engage in an honest and personal conversation about their mental health. Employees are in search of leaders who show empathy and that that they are looking at the well-being (both mental and physical) of their employees. Hybrid leadership, when done correctly, can lend itself to a more autonomous and flexible way of working for employees. This gives the employees the opportunity to feel more in control of themselves and their role without the control and micromanagement of someone over them.

There are many advantages to adopting this leadership style in your workplace and there are plenty of ways of it can be implemented. Interested in learning more about hybrid leadership in the UK, download our Research Report where we share our findings on how UK employees feel about hybrid leadership.