By Leah Clark , Director, Strategy & Development
For many organizations, a hybrid workforce has become the norm. In this environment, many of the traditional methods of working must be adapted to fit this new paradigm. When employees no longer share a common workspace, flexibility and clear communication become essential. Leaders must find new ways of managing and communicating with team members. This may require implementing new policies, learning different technologies, and dealing with the multitude of issues that will come from leading a hybrid team. Mindsets can be a valuable tool to turn to when navigating these challenges.
Introduction to Leadership Mindsets
The shift in mindset to being a leader does not happen like an inchworm that spins a cocoon, undergoes some metamorphosis, and emerges one day as a newly winged leader. It’s much subtler than that. Leadership happens in the nuanced shifts that occur first in the leader’s mind. Before delegation, coaching, or team-building skills are used, individuals need to change how they think about themselves and their role in the organization. They need to adopt certain mindsets that are foundational to leadership success. We believe four elemental leadership mindsets—growth, inclusive, agile, and enterprise—are critical to being a successful leader today.
The Four Key Leadership Attitudes in a Hybrid Environment
Growth Mindset
Having a growth mindset is foundational to leadership success because it supports the premise that people can learn, grow, and expand their skills. When a leader has a growth mindset, they see their own setbacks, and those of the people they lead, as opportunities to be more persistent and try again. Leaders with a mindset for change believe they, and the people around them, get better through effort and persistence.
Benefits of Shifting to a Growth Mindset
A growth mindset can help leaders abandon long-held assumptions about how to get work done, bring people together, and develop careers by reframing these basic assumptions:
Assumption: The team needs to be together to collaborate, innovate, and give feedback.
New Perspective: We can innovate and collaborate in new ways, leveraging technology to support us.
Assumption: Collaboration and innovation will decrease with a hybrid team.
New Perspective: We can increase our ability to collaborate and innovate through a diverse and talented team regardless of location.
Assumption: All people are more collaborative when they can physically be together and brainstorm.
New Perspective: People collaborate in diverse ways—we can make room for that on our team.
Ways of Implementing a Growth Mindset
- Offer coaching to team members to unlock their full potential
- Provide autonomy within your team, by allowing employees to choose the way they work
Inclusive Mindset
For inclusivity to be a part of an organization’s collective consciousness as well as its best practices, it needs to be an inherent part of how leaders conduct themselves. Inclusivity is not an extra concept that leaders should do when they get around to it. It’s part of the internal compass that directs their thinking and their behaviors. Gathering other perspectives and innovative ideas is about consciously seeking diversity while being aware of the unconscious biases that can prevent us from reaching out to others and repeating patterns. This shift in mindset is essential to the future success of your organization.
Benefits of Shifting to an Inclusive Mindset
Hybrid environments require an increased focus on inclusivity. Employees want to be involved in the decision-making process regarding hybrid arrangements. Equity will be a key focus in leader communications, the structure of meetings, and in the way career development is addressed to avoid an “us” vs. “them” mentality among in-office and remote team members. Here are some ways to apply an inclusive mindset to hybrid work.
Assumption: The organization decides what is best.
New Perspective: Involving my team in the decision-making process, to the extent possible, will drive better outcomes for all.
Assumption: Everyone’s work-from-home scenario needs a certain structure.
New Perspective: Each person’s lived experience is different, and we can account for that in the way we structure their work.
Assumption: Individuals in the office are the hardest working and have an important voice at the table.
New Perspective: I have a responsibility to engage all team members. Contribution can come from a diverse group of employees, regardless of where they work.
Ways of Implementing an Inclusive Mindset
- Recognize and confront your own unconscious biases through self-reflection
- Invite feedback from your team members
- Speak up for others and challenge non-inclusive attitudes in team members and the organization itself
Agile Mindset
Our research shows that leaders value a mindset of openness and adaptability—and with good reason. Having an agile mindset, particularly in the context of an ever-changing business and work environment, is crucial. Digital transformation has altered the level and frequency of information individuals receive. An agile leader can take in, filter, and assimilate information quickly. They can then reassess their decisions or choose to stay the course, but they must do so with a frequency that reflects the speed of business. Agile leaders are not just resilient—they seek change as a way to spur innovation. They don’t merely anticipate change; they invite it in.
Benefits of Shifting to an Agile Mindset
An agile mindset will help leaders keep an open mind and remain flexible to alternate ways of working. Here are some ways of using the agile mindset to rethink assumptions:
Assumption: The hybrid team needs to work the same way our in-person team worked, or we cannot sustain it.
New Perspective: We will have bumps along the way as we implement hybrid, and we will need to make adjustments.
Assumption: Hybrid will be successful with solid protocols in place from the start.
New Perspective: We can begin to implement certain elements of hybrid even if we do not have every aspect of it solved.
Ways of Implementing an Agile Mindset
- Embrace change
- Open yourself to alternative solutions & approaches
- Work to become comfortable moving forward with incomplete information
- Prioritize adjusting plans in response to new information
Enterprise Mindset
Finally, today’s leader must increasingly embrace an enterprise mindset. They must think about their goals and their team’s goals in a way that aligns with the goals of the organization. A leader with an enterprise mindset puts the needs of the organization first and foremost—they make decisions based on the greater good. They build relationships for this purpose. They speak up and make tough decisions all in service of organizational needs. A leader with an enterprise mindset pushes beyond group and divisional needs, breaking down siloed thinking with the aim of producing results that benefit the organization.
Benefits of Shifting to an Enterprise Mindset
A hybrid leader balances meeting individual and team needs while keeping the goals of the organization and customers top-of-mind regardless of physical scenarios. Here are a few mindset shift examples:
Assumption: I can get the team working towards the goals of the organization and meeting the needs of our customers by bringing them together physically.
New Perspective: I can get the team working towards the goals of the organization by reminding them of those goals and the needs of our customers regularly.
Assumption: They will remember what they are working for when they see the building and their colleagues.
New Perspective: They team will continue to remain focused on serving our customers regardless of location.
Ways of Implementing an Enterprise Mindset
- Link the team objectives to organizational goals
- Reinforce the connection between what team members are doing and the impact this has on the organization
The Role Culture Plays in Leadership Mindsets
Mindset shifts can only be successful for leaders if the culture is supportive. New thinking alone will not drive leadership success, and the best of leader intentions can fall short if senior leadership doesn’t model behaviors that are in line with this thinking. Likewise, performance management and other processes must align if attitudinal changes are to successfully take hold. An organization that promotes a growth mindset but then punishes failure or risk taking will fail to instill this mindset in its people—just as an organization that rewards group and individual accomplishments will have a tough time promoting enterprise thinking.
Benefits of Shifting Your Leadership Mindset
It is important for leaders to understand how to change their mindset and attitude in a hybrid environment. Reimagining what is possible in a hybrid environment means thinking about things differently—embracing a sense of agility and inclusivity, adopting an enterprise perspective and leading from a perspective of growth and possibility. These mindsets will help you improve your ability to delegate, hold others accountable, and coach team members. These behaviors are the visible evidence that a leader is fulfilling their role, but it’s the mental shift that happens, the attitudes that an individual brings to their role as a leader, that, while intangible, most determines leadership success.
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