While the concept of “servant leadership” — a leadership philosophy which turns the traditional power dynamic on its head — dates back more than 2,000 years, it has recently experienced a renaissance. Experts see servant leadership as the most effective model for today’s world, and for teams with remote employees or hybrid teams with increased flexibility, it’s never been more important.
Servant leadership moves beyond the transactional and hierarchical nature of traditional management, moving to a mode that actively seeks to develop and support employees and working to align their employee’s sense of purpose with the company mission. Instead of commanding employees and brandishing authority, they show humility and look to ways that unlock potential and creativity.
In hybrid or remote team configurations, managers can’t be involved in every conversation and can’t oversee every task, to-do and meeting. The model of traditional leadership is dead by virtue of the fact that it’s impossible to execute!
True servant leaders take a delegative approach to management, acting as a supporter or coach instead of a director or taskmaster. While a laissez-faire leader may choose to go hands-off and let employees sink or swim on their own, the servant leader focuses on building an environment where people have the support and agency to excel at their jobs without feeling micromanaged or smothered. In remote or hybrid work environments, this has never been more valuable.
Act as a bridge-builder
An especially important part of a leader’s role in remote or hybrid teams is actively building alignment within and across teams. With fewer serendipitous moments for people on different teams to interact casually, and with in-person interactions being replaced with typing to one another on a screen, there can sometimes be a degradation of goodwill that leads to teams being misaligned or combative with one another.
Instead of allowing this to happen by doing nothing or by actively segmenting your teams, make it a point to share context from across your organization and identify opportunities for synchronicity and connections wherever and however you can. This may take a bit more effort in a remote or hybrid environment than it would in an office, but putting in that time and work not only demonstrates your commitment to teamwork and bridge building — it shows you care about your colleagues and their interpersonal relationships as well.
Practice active empathy
It’s much easier to be empathetic when you see someone face-to-face every day; when our teams are scattered far and wide and we only see one another through avatars and video chat screens, it can be harder to put ourselves in others’ shoes. Leaders of remote teams need to be able to put themselves in their teammates’ place and imagine their experiences across the broad expanse of their entire work life.
How would it feel to be three time zones ahead of your colleagues? How does the dynamic change between the three co-located teammates because they get lunch every day but their fourth teammate cannot? How are team dynamics impacted when two of the seven team members can’t attend virtual happy hours because of family responsibilities? Considering these realities makes you a more compassionate leader and should empower you to seek out creative solutions.
Passive empathy – simply realizing a struggle exists but doing nothing about it – has its place, but that place is not in your workplace. Taking action based on those empathetic realizations is where your efficacy as a leader lies.
Remain process-oriented but flexible
Bad processes become bureaucracy and good processes streamline collaboration. In a hybrid world where some people are working in the office and others are remote, schedules may be unpredictable and chaotic. In that environment, it’s even more important to build a strong operating cadence to keep your team aligned and in sync. This keeps your colleagues from feeling both out of the loop and overwhelmed, which translates to better work and more cohesiveness. The key is to find the right balance.
But even when you have these processes in place, it’s important that you remain prepared to change them when you need to. Switching up tactics as the landscape and needs of your team change is vital to ongoing success and to mitigating burnout. It’s important to be mindful of, in the words of Jeff Bezos, “the process becoming the proxy for the result you want.” Build feedback loops into your processes where you take time to reflect and evaluate whether the ways you are working are working for you.
Practice consistent mindfulness
A lack of visibility into someone’s work can increase anxiety of whether the work is being done effectively and well. This is a natural reaction, but without self-awareness, it can quickly lead to overbearing and micromanaging behavior. If you feel your emotions and reactions tending in that direction, it’s time to recenter your mindset and your attitude around your work and your team.
Servant leadership in hybrid and remote work environments ensure that team members enjoy an environment conducive to producing great results and ensure positive relationships between colleagues across teams and departments. By embodying this leadership model and its principles, you’ll quickly see the difference in how your teams work, interact, and lead.
