by Elias Moses
All CEOs, to a large end, agree that covid-19 will have a lasting impact on the very nature of leadership in business. The pandemic has led to some basic behavioural changes among humanity, and specially among the workforce.
We are unforgiving if we believe that some people are not taking the necessary precautions against Coronavirus.
Quite simply, people don’t know whom to trust any more. We begin to look at another with an idea of suspicion, not for any wrong reason, but with a basic fear not being infected by the virus. This situation is going to continue for a more than a year, and distancing may eventually become a habit.
Post-lockdown, when life resumes on full scale, we could well emerge into a society marked by much higher distrust, fear and insecurity. It may force business leaders onto a path of greater transparency, and to make extra efforts to generate and maintain trust.
T.V. Narendran, global CEO of Tata Steel, said: “As we become more connected in some way (digitally) and more disconnected in some way (physically), trust becomes more important and more fragile in some sense. So leaders have to step up to the challenge.”
As recent industry statistics prove that going forward more than 50% of people could be operating from their homes.
But the irony is that most of our workforce and leadership is not equipped for it.
About 99.8 per cent of the workforce in the information technology sector is incapable of working from home and only 0.2 per cent are ‘Work from Home’ champions and showcase high productive attributes, according to the study by research-backed innovative venture SCIKEY MindMatch.
The Business leaders will have adapt to or work with these three challenges going forward-
1. The challenge of managing Remote Work
Remote work is great and advantageous in many ways. We might have more flexibility in how, when, and where we work and interact.
But the real challenge is that we are physically disconnected from our colleagues, our managers, and our customers. And the only way to bridge that gap is to do something impactful—to do something visible.
Doing a good job is important. How that is possible? The business leaders have to rise above a field of increasingly dispersed workers to manage work and time.
The real challenge here is managing space and time. Now the real time burden for business leaders will be managing and reaching people who are physically separated by space and time. Not as easy as we think…
2. The challenge of managing Remote Behaviour
We have heard a say, “You need to stand out to be outstanding”? Well, that’s the key!
We all need a positive way to stand out. We expect great appreciation for having stood out from the ordinary. That is a reality, when we are physically connected in an environment.
Building visibility will be a key challenge for business leaders in the post Covid era. Specially Managing remote conflicts and indifference will be a huge challenge. Human behaviour will be a huge cause of concern. That can pose a huge threat to productivity in general.
Leaders make leaders, when they act and interact together.
But how can the virtual leaders build future leaders, when they are not humanly connected in work-place senario.
This is perhaps one of the greatest professional realisations that is likely to come as a result of the experience of remote work in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
3. Challenge of managing Remote Productivity
The future is going to be different than the present. And one of the most important things that’s going to change is how people work and bring results.
We are here to witness some potentially accelerating set of changes in the field of Human Resources with a renewed emphasis and strict adherence on Key performance areas and Key Performance indicators (KPAs and KPIs).
The HR wing of every organisation will have work closely with the leadership to adapt new HR performance practises to manage and measure remote desk operations and virtual behaviours.
Failure in this area of importance will have huge gap and decline in productivity.
Another important area of concern will be to keep a tap on job-count. Leaders have to ensure automated tools to measure job-counts per head to ensure remote productivity yields better results on a longer run.
Unlike other forms of leadership, Business leadership in my view will have a complete make over, as these three challenges envisaged above, namely ‘remote work, remote behaviour and remote productivity’ touch the basic four Ms of an organisation – Man, Money, Machine and material – which is the whole of business.
Management today requires requisite skills, paradigms and processes and systems that help organisations and its leaders to create pipelines, to convert remote work ethics and patterns into sustainable productivity and profitability.
Elias Moses is a Senior Business Strategist, Consultant, Researcher, Corporate and Leadership Trainer, Orator, Columnist and an Entrepreneur. He is the Founder and Managing Director of a growing reality firm in south India. He is also the Founder of Managing Next.
The author can be contacted@
email: elias@managingnext.in, linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/eliasmoses