Leading Your Team Post Pandemic

As we find ourselves moving into a post-pandemic world, the challenges of working with a team are growing with the newfound distance. The traits of good leadership may not have changed, but good leaders are more important now than ever. When leading a team, especially post-pandemic, leaders should work to develop agility, communication skills, and find ways to show commitment to their teams.

Agility has always been a good trait for a leader to have, but the pandemic brought its role into focus. Those who were able to adapt quickly to remote work were the first to recover as we moved out of the office and began working remotely. Teams need leaders who are not derailed by unexpected changes but are willing to take point and lead the team through the next challenge. To be an agile leader:

• Know Your Goals:

  What does your team want to accomplish? Make sure you make goals and expectations clear. When the unexpected happens, knowing your goals will help keep your team on track. For help developing these goals, look to SMART goals.

• Be Open to Change:

  Understand that the important thing is that the goals get accomplished, not how you go about accomplishing them. So long as goals and deadlines are being met, giving your team freedom to innovate and try new things can help boost morale and productivity.

• Keep Communication Open:

  Frequent communication is necessary to create and maintain an agile team. For a plan to be effective, everyone must know about it. Daily updates or a running group chat may help your team stay up to date.

Leading a team post pandemic often means leading hybrid or remote teams. We no longer run into each other, and it can be easy (easier than we would like) to forget that we are humans working with other humans. This lack of communication is especially a problem for leaders who must work to maintain productivity, cohesion, and morale. The best way to ease this burden on remote work is through frequent communication.

• Have Clear Expectations:

  The best thing a leader can do in any circumstances is set clear expectations for their team. Make sure members know what is expected by establishing deadlines, regular meetings, and encouraging questions and collaboration. Uncertainty can lead to more work and unnecessary headaches.

• Provide Feedback/Positive Reinforcement:

  Isolated as remote workers are from the team, it’s easy to lose motivation. Make it a point to go through and celebrate things that your team is doing right and take early corrective action on things that need to be changed or fixed. People like to know when they are doing a good job. Acknowledgement of good work can go a long way.

• Build and Maintain Relationships:

  Building and maintaining relationships in a remote team can be difficult. Make sure to schedule some time into meetings to catch up with each other. Have a running group chat (maybe one separate from the work group chat) where people can message each other about events. Also consider office days when the whole team goes into the office. Make sure you have a purpose, though. Your team may resent being brought into the office when they could have been on Zoom.

The relationship between employer and employee is reciprocal as all relationships are. As the leader, your team gets its cues from you. If you want the members of your team to be committed to the team and each other, you must first show that same level of commitment. Show your team that they matter to you. Ask about their days, their children, their interests. Always be willing to help or answer questions.

Whatever role you’re looking to fill on your team, Adapture can connect you with the right candidate. The Talent Managers at Adapture can help you improve productivity, maximize profitability, and improve the efficiency of your business.