Leadership Priorities For Navigating The Next Normal

Practices that will help build engagement and cultural resilience

Yet another Covid variation is burning through the world, sending workers home, shuttering restaurants and bars, and even delaying Davos.

On the home front, fear of Covid (or the Great Vaccine Debate), family separation, remote schooling, and social isolation have raised anxiety and mental health issues within many families.

Meanwhile, inflation fears and the investment required to keep up with technological disruption, continue to put downward pressure on company bottom lines.
 

What will these pressures mean for the workplace in 2022? And more importantly, what will leaders need to do to respond? 

I recommend that any leader, who wants to successfully navigate the Next Normal, focus on the following five priorities.

Refocus on Building Engagement

Covid-19’s consequences—lockdowns, Zoom fatigue, wage inflation, a dearth of workers, and even ‘too much’ time to reassess life’s purpose—are frequently blamed for making it harder for leaders to keep good people.

But Covid-19 is merely a catalyst: To understand the root cause, leaders should spend more time looking in the mirror.

Why are people leaving? Because their leaders have failed to engage them emotionally.  

To respond to the “Next Normal,” leaders will need to refocus on building engagement if they want to win in the all-important war for talent.

Connect with Employees Individually

In a period of crisis or significant change, people’s needs shift as they focus more on the safety and security of themselves and their families. Remote working compounds this, as many people feel more isolated.  

And having experienced the benefits of remote working—less time commuting, more flexible working hours, more ability to concentrate on “quiet” work—few employees will want to go back to full time office work (even where their home working environment is less than ideal).  

While companies are already experimenting with new hybrid working rules, the most effective leaders will regularly connect with each employee individually—ideally in person or by phone (which I find permits better emotional connection than Zoom)— to understand and support their particular situation, challenges, and career ambitions.  When people feel their direct leader cares about them personally, they are far less likely to leave.

Clearly Communicate The Organization’s “Why”

With Covid-19 having forced a break from normal working patterns, many employees have used the time to take stock of their career aspirations, working conditions, and emotional satisfaction relative to their pay—and aren’t happy with the result.

In part, this is because leaders have failed to communicate a sense of purpose about the organization’s—and the individual’s—work.  

Do employees understand the “why” of the organization - why it exists, and how it contributes beyond making a profit? Do they know what they do all day, contributes to that purpose? Do they understand the organization’s priorities, and choices?

With Generation Y and Z comprising an increasingly large portion of the workforce, the ability of leaders to demonstrate that the organization has a “noble purpose”—as well as strong ESG credentials—is essential. 

When people find meaning in their daily work, they are much less likely to go searching elsewhere. In the year ahead, the most effective leaders will make a point to communicate why the work that each person does matters—this is especially true for people who are working from home, or not directly exposed to the output and impact that the organization is making.

Set Simple Guidelines About Hybrid Work

With managers increasingly having to oversee teams that include both in-person and remote workers, the challenge of effectively managing performance will become acute.

In some respects, workers’ reliance on technology makes it easier for leaders to monitor effort and to set and track performance against numeric goals. This includes tapping into new tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams to support collaboration and accelerate communications.

But in many organizations, remote working makes it harder to onboard new employees, build team relationships, collaborate on creative work, and mentor young people. 

To maximize team effectiveness, the best leaders will set clear guidelines that balance the need for physical presence with the desire for flexibility. They will also devote more time to mentoring and reviewing individual employees’ work product and behaviour to help them achieve their full potential.

Identify and Breakdown Barriers That Hold People Back 

Resource constraints, technology limitations, ever-changing government rules and regulations, difficulty in accessing training, the challenges of building and navigating relationships among a remote workforce—all of these can make it harder for people to achieve the goals that are set for them.

And as the Covid- and technology-disrupted market becomes less predictable and more dynamic, companies will need their people to think creatively and be willing to challenge convention. Yet many employees will gravitate to simply “following the rules” to seek safety in chaos. This is particularly true of middle managers, whose financial circumstances—mortgages, children’s education, parental care responsibilities—can make the prospect of job loss particularly daunting.

To avoid falling behind, leaders in the “Next Normal” will need to be proactive in identifying—and knocking over—the barriers that hold their people back—whether they are financial (resource availability), intellectual (training), political (e.g., decision rights), or emotional (confidence, team relationships, etc.). 

When employees see their leaders take action to make their lives easier and help them succeed, it goes a long way to increasing their confidence and reducing stress—as well as attrition.

Bonus Thoughts About Navigating the Next Normal

The “Next Normal” will bring new challenges for leaders to navigate, with employees expecting—if not demanding—a more engaging workplace if they are to stay rather than join the Great Resignation.

Over the past twenty years, through CEO and senior executive roles in the US, Australia, Asia, and the UK, I’ve studied and applied the practices that high performing leaders use to build and sustain high engagement in organizations both large and small.

And I believe a concerted focus on applying what I call the “5 Cs” of Leadership are the critical practices that will help build the engagement and cultural resilience needed to navigate the “Next Normal”.

Do employees feel Cared about as individual human beings? Do leaders provide Context that helps them find meaning in the organization’s purpose, and see how their work contributes to that purpose? Are they Clear on what’s expected of them?  Do leaders Clear the way so that they feel supported and safe?  Are their contributions Celebrated in a heart-felt way? 

Leaders who can answer “Yes” to the above will be well prepared to navigate the “Next Normal”.

Brian Hartzer is the author of THE LEADERSHIP STAR: A Practical Guide To Building Engagement. He is an experienced executive and leadership mentor, who served as CEO of the Westpac Banking Group from 2015 to 2019. Earlier, he spent 15 years in senior executive roles at the Royal Bank of Scotland Group and ANZ Banking Group. Hartzer has also worked as a financial services strategy consultant at First Manhattan Consulting Group in New York, San Francisco, and Melbourne. He is currently an advisor and investor to several Sydney-based start-ups, including Quantium, a data-science company.  Connect Brian Hartzer