The leadership imperative to the hybrid future As we journey into a hybrid future of work, what key points do leaders need to focus on? Here are six themes critical to the shape of leadership in the hybrid working model By Shashwat Mitra
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hen Professor Nancy Koehn of Harvard Business School in her work published on HBR in 2020 said that “Real Leaders Are Forged in Crisis”, no one could deny it. A couple of years since, we now witness a world which has been changed greatly through the crisis. The leaders who have endured this are evolved, but continue to hold their individual views of the future based on their insights, experiences, judgement, perception, and anticipation. From the vantage of leadership there are multiple priorities to address, and one of those near the top of the list is the understanding of ‘hybrid’ for themselves and for their organisation. This field has been much researched, but the definition and manifestation of the term ‘hybrid’ remains unique for leaders and their employees. When the world was struck by the coronavirus, | July 2022
companies which offered flexibility (which I am oversimplifying with the term ‘hybrid’) as their unique selling proposition suddenly found that their nice-to-have option had become a necessity. Then, during the many quarters when the world slowed down, the talent market changed drastically, and a whole new talent war opened up. Now the newly mobile talent have started laying out their own defini-
tion of ‘hybrid’ as suited to their needs. Here is the leader’s têteà-tête with the journey towards a ‘hybrid’ future. A cognitive and realistic description of this journey has these six themes:
The trust imperative
The post-pandemic transition to hybrid has one common path of success, which is trust. It is not an option, nor can leaders take
