Leading Differently Today

by Rhonda N. Hall

So much has changed for people leaders over the past few years, many are questioning whether they want to remain in a leadership role, or return to being an independent contributor. With the difficulty to find new talent, to retain talent and to motivate remote talent, people leaders have simply had to lead differently in order to be successful. There are three things people leaders can do today that will assist them in recruiting, retaining and engaging employees and that is leading with empathy, flexibility and accountability—in that order.  

Leading with empathy, once frowned upon as a people leader core strength, today is the foundation upon which all other leadership behaviors are built. Employee needs have shifted. Their personal lives have blended more openly with their professional lives as a result of working from home for an extended period of time where separation simply wasn’t possible. Leaders now know more about employee’s personal lives than they knew prior to 2020, and “unseeing” what has been seen simply can’t be done.  

Now that leaders know the homelives of employees, engaging in those lives, inquiring, demonstrating care, and being sensitive to their lives is the expectation. Leaders who lead with empathy first will find employees extending trust, engaging, and bringing their whole self to the office. As Heather McGowen and Chris Shipley address in The Empathy Advantage, “By embracing empathy as a primary tool for your leadership, you shift the dynamic of your organization.”

With people leaders more aware of the underlying aspects of employee’s lives, knowing and not doing is not acceptable—which leads us to talk about leading with flexibility. The action of understanding an employee’s personal situations and challenges is empathy. Taking the next step to then apply that information into how decisions are made is leading with flexibility.  

If the “working remotely” policy states that an employee needs to physically be in the building 50% of the time, and it works better for an employee to come in Monday – Friday from 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. versus the standard 2.5 days per week, why not embrace this solution? If the goal is to ensure that we are engaging employees more fully, their hearts and minds—and we better understand their whole lives—why we resist custom designing solutions for employees like we would for a customer?  

Seeking a way to get to “yes” vs. starting with why something won’t work is the first place to start. If we lead with striving to find a balance that works best for employees and meets the business need, it is a win/win. Employees feel valuable and important—and that’s the TRUE win!

If you are starting to wonder when real work will get done with all this fuzzy feeling stuff happening around you, it happens now! Being clear on expectations, ensuring employees understand what, when, how and why of those expectations, celebrating when things go well and having candid conversations when things are not on par is the third step in leading in today’s world.  

Employees who are engaged, who feel heard and cared for traditionally will present themselves with a willingness to accept responsibility for their work. As a leader, our role is to treat people with empathy and flexibility first, then meet employee’s where they are which sets the foundation for accountability, responsibility and productivity to occur. We will need to ensure we are holding up our part of bargain, being kind, listening acutely to what their current realities are, seeking to get to “yes,” and then holding them accountable for the expectations of the role. This is how businesses today are engaging and retaining employees.  

It takes all three, applied equally to get the desired outcome. Any one element (empathy, flexibility, accountability) that is too strong at any one time will create imbalance in the relationship, disengagement and ultimately contribute to performance problems. When we achieve the balance between the three, we have landed on the trifecta of superior leadership that will carry us through these dynamic times!