Hybrid team leaders need to create trust, psychological safety, and bring all voices to the table
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It’s crucial that leaders possess empathy towards their team members, and that they are adaptable to accept and leverage different working styles to shape their team and organisational culture. Smitha Subhas, Head HR – Technology in India, Uber, explains why this is doubly important in the hybrid model
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mitha Subhas, the Head of Human Resources for Uber’s Technology Group in India where she leads people practices for engineering and product teams that build innovative products and services for global markets across multiple domains, is passionate about driving a deep impact on all strategic people's elements of the transformational journey of a business. She also strives to create an enabling organisational culture where employees can thrive and bring their authentic selves to work. In her career spanning over 16 years, Subhas has
supported global teams in large-scale multinational organisations in HR business partnering roles and has built expertise in organisation design, change management, leadership, and talent development. She is also a design thinking practitioner. Before joining Uber, she has been with global technology organisations such as Dell, Wipro, and most recently with Cisco as the Chief of Staff for the Vice President of APJC human resources. In an interaction with People Matters, Subhas talks about her approach to hybrid work, aspects of lead-
ership or management that have become most important with a distributed team, and leadership styles that work best in the hybrid work model.
Have you found your own leadership style changing with hybrid work, and how? My own leadership style has become more focused on being dynamic and agile to be able to adapt quickly to the needs of the team and that of the organisation at large. Most importantly, my leadership has evolved to keep those we serve at the heart of our people initiatives. July 2022 |
STORY
By Mamta Sharma
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