Leadership During and After the Pandemic
In their article in a Harvard Business Review special issue, authors Brian Kropp, Alexia Cambon and Sara Clark ask, “What Does It Mean to Be a Manager Today?” * They share that since the pandemic, three disruptive and challenging trends are changing the management role: 1) Normalization of remote work; 2) Accelerated use of technology to manage employees; and 3) Employees’ changing expectations.
What results is that relationships between managers and employees have become more asynchronous, technology tools are replacing manager feedback, and the role of the manager is shifting to becoming more emotional and supportive. “Knowledge workers now expect their managers to be part of their support system to help them improve their life experience rather than just their employee experience.”
They conclude that to be successful in this new environment, managers must lead with empathy and that managers must build fundamentally different relationships with their employees. “These three trends have culminated in a new era of management where it’s less important to see what employees are doing and more important to understand how they feel.”
In 2021 surveys they conducted of 3000+ knowledge workers and 75 HR leaders, they found that managers who display empathy have three times the impact on employee’s performance. Those workers are also twice as likely to agree that their environment is inclusive.
They recommend that organizations marshal resources to develop managers’ skills in this area, awaken mindsets to managing in new ways, and create capacity across the organization for this shift.
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