Why we need virtual leaders

 

When employees feel disconnected from their organisation, when levels of engagement are faltering and they’re losing a clear sense of purpose, there’s often an issue of leadership.

More and more, organisations are having to face up to these kinds of creeping problems. The Great Resignation is just one signal of how workplaces have changed post-pandemic — and will never be the same again.

As a result of long periods of furlough or working from home, people are thinking about their work life and future in different ways. The greatest change for leaders, though, has come with such widespread adoption of hybrid working. A BBC survey among 50 of the UK’s biggest employers last year found that 43 had already committed to a hybrid future. And it’s something employees want (and need): a Microsoft study in December 2021 suggested 51% of UK employees would simply resign from their post if the hybrid option was taken away.

Remote working has meant HR and management challenges. But organisations are only just starting to understand what hybrid working means, that the many benefits come along with new imperatives for managers and leaders to deal with. Staff report feeling forgotten by managers, less likely to be considered for promotion and left out of the conversations and interactions happening in the workplace. Burnout and presenteeism can be a big problem. Robert Walters’ Guide to Hybrid Working says 55% of UK professionals said remote working didn’t do anything for their work/life balance: 53% felt overworked, 39% ‘exhausted’.

What’s very clear in all the confusion of practices, the questions over relationships, is that virtual working technology — no matter how slick, useful and sustainable — doesn’t provide any solutions in itself.

We need good virtual leaders with new skills: the skills that will make the combination of talented people and virtual technologies really work. We need them because there is so much to gain for everyone. Good virtual leadership practices and behaviours are essential for future performance and productivity, for employee engagement. But there’s a bigger picture to remember here. Virtual working is at the heart of delivering the future sustainability of business: the all-important environmental footprint, as well as for diversity and inclusion and for people’s wellbeing.

This is why I set up VLA — because there’s a huge amount to do, in sharing good practice and developing leaders, if we’re going to make a difference for business, their brands, their employees and the wider world.

 

Dr Ghislaine Caulat, Founder, VLA.

 

 

You can stay in touch via our LinkedIn updates, with thinking and advice on virtual leadership, and find out more about what we’re doing here.