Imagine what it is like to become a new leader at a time when the work paradigm is undergoing a radical shift. In many corporate settings, rising leaders work remotely — far from not only their physical offices but, more urgently, from their teams.
These new leaders must hire team members through a series of video conferencing chats. Only later do leaders have a chance to meet their new hires in person. They onboard their staff, build a team that can collaborate effectively and develop the individuals on that team — all as a face and voice on a screen. Opportunities for offhand or casual communication, which tend to frequently occur onsite in offices, do not exist.
Instead, conversations are, by nature, more deliberate: planned, crafted and sent online. All of this work is done without the nuances that an in-office setting can accommodate much more often and easily: leaders observing behavior, providing feedback, coaching on the fly and collaborating with their team members.
This type of remote leadership — the kind that demands experience, intuition and insight —would be challenging for any leader, yet new managers are just starting their leadership journeys. A reflexive response from a senior leader might be to protect these developing leaders from the discomfort of a world in transition. After all, not only is it difficult to lead remotely, but these rising leaders have teams made up of a new generation: Gen Z.
Gen Z came of working age at the time that the COVID-19 pandemic moved into a more endemic phase; the oldest of them are now 25. Purpose-driven, “seeking balance and sustained change,” technologically adept and “deeply concerned about the state of the world.” This describes the youngest cohort of new employees, a workforce looking for work/life balance and trust in the people who lead them.
Like generations of workers before them, Gen Z is looking to be led by capable leaders, but this new workforce also seeks an environment that empowers them to thrive. Gen Z workers value “ethical, servant leadership that supports them and helps them develop their skills,” writes Neil Khaund, president of the National Society of Leadership and Success. Their expectations of work are that they will be cared for, and that they will care about the work their organization is doing.
What do rising leaders need?
Astute senior leaders can see that rising leaders are squeezed by both of these compelling forces: a workplace that is not necessarily a place, and an influx of young workers who have a shifting set of expectations of leaders and organizations. To close the gap for rising leaders, senior leaders could take on more work and try to solve all the problems, a short-term solution and a sure path to burnout. Instead, senior leaders need to bridge the gap — that is, give rising leaders the development they deserve and ensure that these new leaders understand the needs of their employees.
The challenge for this cohort’s leaders — the new leaders in an organization — is not only to do leadership but to be leaders, authentically and intentionally. Rising leaders will need to develop their skills as servant leaders, providing frameworks for their teams and empowering them to learn and grow. These are capabilities typically associated with more senior leaders, who have become aware of their strengths through experience. It will require commitment from the organization and from senior leaders to shape their rising leaders into role models for the Gen Z workforce.
New leaders, hampered by the altered structure of today’s work world, find themselves playing catch-up all the time. The solution to what they need is deceptively simple and very much a return to basics: Like all leaders, rising leaders will need to be expert in core management skills, such as communication and prioritization, have the opportunity to safely practice leadership and have the support of the organizational ecosystem, one now remarkably scattered. Leadership has always required these behaviors. The transformation is that now they are undeniably central to the role.
Management 101: Back to the basics
Rather than requiring a host of new skills, leading remote workers today requires that leaders learn and hone the essential skills, the ones taught in management 101 classes for decades. These core skills involve the need for leaders to:
- Set clear expectations.
- Define roles.
- Set priorities.
- Communicate regularly and with transparency.
- Address performance issues as they occur.
- Listen and remain open and curious.
- Role-model best practices and behaviors for the team.
These are necessities, not nice-to-haves, in today’s workforce, because there are few unplanned opportunities to interject them. There are no longer frequent corridor conversations that allow employees to clarify something they misunderstood about an assignment or for leaders to inquire about status or provide laser coaching. Whether through learning and development programs or at staff meetings, the organization and senior leaders will need to create formal and informal opportunities for new leaders to engage in such activities.
Practice: Space to develop
Once rising leaders learn the core skills, they need to be able to practice them, particularly because remote work has removed the informality of many interactions. Reading the room can be tough on a phone or video conferencing call, which means that a form of immediate feedback is altogether missing. New leaders can consciously use each interaction they have as a place to practice these core skills: A leader can harness her curiosity in order to ask direct questions and allow time for answers, consciously plan to communicate strategy and prioritization and allow her self-awareness to guide her as the role model she is for her team members.
This means that senior leaders must provide cover for their rising leaders, trusting in their abilities and coaching them through the discomfort of mistakes. In effect, these senior leaders are providing their new leaders with a space to try and fail. That space is not physical but cultural. A culture that allows leaders to make mistakes and then correct them — and learn from them — will create more effective leaders.
Ecosystem: Organizational support
Leaders thrive in organizations in large part because of the connections they make. This web of connections is part of the ecosystem of the organization, transcending roles and divisions and creating efficiencies. But without informal interactions, it is harder for rising leaders to build these types of relationships, such as:
- Trusted colleagues. These are a leader’s work friends, the ones they can count on for advice or to get a “read” on situations. In today’s workforce, with fewer interactions, these relationships might develop more slowly.
- Role models. These are senior leaders, the best of whom demonstrate how to lead most effectively. Without in-person meetings, the subtleties of this role-modeling might be lost.
- Mentors. These are leaders from other parts of the organization who provide perspective from their experience. For many rising leaders, these relationships will need to be designed more formally. Instead of them developing naturally, it might be necessary for senior leaders to make these connections.
- Organizational network. There are others within the organization with whom leaders build bridges through broader involvement, whether on committees or sports teams or through company events. If these cross-functional groupings do not occur, the chances of networking are greatly diminished.
- Expanded network. The toughest bridges for rising leaders to build now are undoubtedly the connections they would normally make outside of the organization. The pandemic put the brakes on this networking effort, and rising leaders have likely lost ground here.
Consider each of these connections. How will rising leaders forge these relationships from afar or alone? Without the infrastructure of an organization and a shared, physical workspace, leaders cannot easily form these connections, ones that are highly valued by the Gen Z workforce.
It falls to senior leaders and the organization as a whole to provide leadership experiences, networking opportunities and mentorship and coaching in order to accelerate the growth of these rising leaders. Formal coaching programs, in which rising leaders are matched to an outside, objective coach, could be tremendously valuable. In addition, organizational efforts that provide networking opportunities in person (e.g., leadership training courses, all-hands meetings, team building, strategy offsites) will accelerate this relationship building.
Leadership development in today’s remote workforce is an exercise in developing old wisdom in new leaders. It involves skill and capability-building, providing leadership experiences and ensuring mentorship and coaching to accelerate growth that may have ebbed. It is also supporting rising leaders in their leadership work with an organizational ecosystem that understands and meets the needs of all employees and, in particular, the new generation of employees. These critical efforts will serve to bridge the gap for rising leaders and are essential for overall organizational growth and health.
