Leadership styles have had to change radically this year. Instead of managing colleagues face-to-face, business leaders have had to lead from afar, supervising disparate teams over Zoom or Microsoft Teams.
It's not a leadership style that many managers would have picked; socially-distanced working has been a necessity rather than a choice. And many leaders are still uncomfortable both managing at a distance and trusting their staff to get on with their work without direction.
Harvard Business Review (HBR) reports that 40% of managers have low self-confidence[1] in their ability to manage workers remotely. More than a third (38%), meanwhile, still believe remote workers usually perform worse than those in an office.
SEE: Top 100+ tips for telecommuters and managers (free PDF)[2] (TechRepublic)
Yet as uncomfortable as some managers might be with socially-distanced leadership, it's also true that some of the radical changes associated to this transformation are here to stay, quite possibly in the long term.
When the morning commute does return, don't expect train carriages to be full. Many workers have enjoyed the flexibility that working from home brings. They've seen the benefits[3] and they're going to choose to work for a company that offers some degree of flexibility.
In short, there's going to be no rush to return to the office as we knew it. But executives must be careful to ensure that socially-distant management doesn't turn into a detached leadership style.
On top of this, too many workers are already suffering from burnout[4]. In these challenging conditions, adopting the right leadership style is going to be crucial, says Randall S. Peterson, professor and academic director of the Leadership Institute at London Business School.
He argues that the core issue for managers is to work