Top Leadership Skills You Will Need In The New Normal
As the world starts to re-open and loosen restrictions put in place during the pandemic, we’re beginning to move from crisis control mode to thinking about the new normal. The threat of renewed waves and variants of COVID-19 ensures that uncertainty may remain in place for many more months. However, economies are re-opening and companies are looking towards the road ahead, and it has never been more critical to understand the future leadership skills needed for leaders to succeed in a post COVID world.
Empathy and Emotional Intelligence
Now more than ever, there is a greater need for genuine human connection, understanding and empathy in every job role. COVID has touched all of our lives in many different ways. Some employees will bounce back and others may not. Leaders will require a natural sense of when a particular team member may need extra assistance, to take a break or a few additional words of encouragement and support. Keeping morale and productivity levels high while managing an ongoing remote workforce has to be a top priority.
Leaders will also need to exercise active listening, ensuring their employees' voices are heard and addressed across the whole organisation. This won't be a time for hierarchy, but rather being on the ground and directly listening to the concerns of staff, their priorities, and their ideas. While implementing suggested new changes in the business won’t please everyone all the time, the opinion of those on the ground may be the one that ultimately dictates the direction your business takes and not the discussion happening in the boardroom.
Communication Skills
Communication and emotional intelligence go hand-in-hand. The best communication styles are often factual, candid, and without ambiguity to encourage calm amidst the storm. Although sometimes it is not always the easiest message to deliver, leaders of tomorrow will need to adopt a level of candour that shows their employees they trust their intelligence.
Fake news, ambiguous, or even news delivered without the right tone, too late, or even worse, not at all, can have dire consequences, and instead of bringing organisations together, it can lead to fear and workplace anxiety. Some of the biggest mistakes a leader can make in these uncertain times are communicating that they know more than they do, relying too heavily on instincts or previous experiences they’ve had. It takes a strong leader to admit they don’t have all the answers right now. And for future leaders, consistent, clear, accurate, and honest communication throughout the organisation has never been more important.
Agility and Flexibility
Flexibility and adaptability are skills we have all had to develop over the last few months, the skillsets of leaders will need to continue to grow with this trend.
Weeks before any government officially moved into lockdown, many companies acted ahead, moving to a work from home default to give a head start on any ‘teething issues’ and pre-empt what might be coming. It is doubtful, however, that anyone could have imagined such drastic widespread closures, or for quite as long as it has lasted. Future leaders will need to be willing to regularly review new data and information, and change course as necessary along the way. Gone are the days of making firm plans and sticking with them in the long-term.
This is especially true as businesses worldwide see a rise in the number of employees wanting to continue working from home long after the pandemic passes, having seen the upside of cutting down on their commuting times and spending more time with their families. Many companies have already cited the benefits of this model and are moving to adopt a more flexible workforce. Leadership will need to be empathetic to the needs and wants for this new work/life balance.
Tech Savviness
Even before the pandemic hit, the growing digital skills gap was apparent across businesses worldwide. COVID only amplified and accelerated the need for specialist digital skillsets required in today’s world.
Looking ahead, investment in both technologies and in people to understand those technologies is essential. Leadership will need to have a better understanding of technology’s role in collaborative working as well as continuously developing employees' skillsets and promoting ongoing training. Candidates and employees who can demonstrate a solid digital skillset, programming skills, cloud experience and more will see their profile rise above the rest.
There will be several more skillsets that will reveal themselves to be just as critical as these outlined once we get further into the new normal, but the best thing we can do to uncover them is to stay agile, stay listening and always be learning.