How to Grow Your Hybrid Team Leadership This Year

As 2021 comes to an end and a new year begins, many questions remain unanswered about hybrid team leadership. If you’re getting ready to gear up for the upcoming year of incredible personal and professional progress, we hope that this article will help satisfy your burning questions surrounding the hybrid workforce!

The Language of Leadership

As you know, in 2021, we’ve spoken a lot about hybrid work. And it certainly makes sense, given the ongoing prevalence this topic will continue to have into the new year. We wanted to take a moment to reflect on the top lessons we’ve learned about hybrid work so far in order to make 2022 even more transformative for leaders of hybrid teammates everywhere!

3 Lessons for Hybrid Team Leadership

Lesson 1: Focus on building trust 

For a moment, let’s go back to Brené Brown’s marble jar analogy, which demonstrates that trust is built in small moments over time––like marbles filling up a glass jar. All in all, this simple analogy shows us that consistency matters, even if it just starts with one conversation at a time. Practicing frequent, effective communication is integral to also being a top-notch hybrid teammate. However you go about it, simply showing up week over week with care, empathy, and compassion, will very quickly establish a foundation of trust with your team.

Lesson 2: Know and communicate your strengths 

Being aware of your strong points is a must for being a fantastic hybrid worker––and so is being able to share them with your team. Better yet, being able to effectively communicate exactly what you can bring to the table allows you to ask exactly what you need from your teammates in order to produce your best work. By having this kind of self-understanding, you can forge better working relationships with the rest of your team and conquer tasks more efficiently. This is why Strength-Based development is such a powerful tool for hybrid work. 

Lesson 3: Celebrate your differences 

As the world continually adjusts to hybrid work models, virtually all teams are bound to encounter differences in work styles and approaches. 

In order to create the ideal work environment in this format, consider the ways in which you can offer acceptance to your teammates’ varying communication and work styles. Instead of focusing on how they may conflict with one another, think about how your team’s differences can be celebrated and leveraged to create synergy in hybrid work models. 

At the end of the day, the key to being a stellar hybrid leader or teammate is actually highly individualized. Yes, we can offer every last one of our tips, but if it doesn’t align with certain strengths and communication styles, teammates need to be having conversations about what will work for them instead. For instance, some individuals are not keen on using platforms like Slack or Zoom, instead opting for programs that are more compatible with their team’s work style(s). 

In all, it’s really about your team coming together and talking about what works for them and what doesn’t––communication is always key.

Hybrid Team Leadership in Practice

Over the course of the pandemic, we heard many people sharing their positive experiences with remote work, as well as their reservations about going back to in-person offices. If you or your teammates are adamant about staying remote or hybrid, consider the ways in which these work models may be used to keep teams just as, if not more, productive. This means being very responsive, asking questions, and fostering more connection with co-workers. 

Whether you’re embarking on a new position as a hybrid leader, or still finding your way through as the pandemic continues, your ability to learn and adapt a growth mindset never ends. Inside our group coaching program Activate, we teach leaders the communication skills they need to create hybrid teams that thrive. 

Because out of sight doesn’t need to mean out of mind! 

Carrie & Team Leadology