Happy Tuesday!

You might have noticed that I talk a lot about being a flexible leader (if you are new here or have been under a rock, my latest book is titled Flexible Leadership).

Today I am flexing in that the lead article is about as short as it has ever been (but I think it makes the point I’m after). And it is talking about an underpinning that is required for us to be more flexible in our approach to leading.

Hopefully that serves as a model that we can be clear in our values and purpose and yet flexible in our approach.

Make it a great Tuesday and remember…

You are Remarkable!

Kevin 😊

We’ve Forgotten One of the Biggest Covid Working Lessons

Part of the discussion about remote vs. in the office work is missing the mark completely.

I have a unique vantagepoint on the entire arc of the conversation about when and where people should work.

• I've had a most-remote team for approaching 15 years.

• I've been consulting with leaders and organizations about leading and working at a distance since 2015.

• I coauthored a book titled The Long-Distance Leader (with Wayne Turmel) in 2018 - two years before the pandemic lockdowns.

After the lockdowns ended, all the discussion became about where people would work - and most of that conversation has been framed as pitting employer wants (in many cases to come back to a workplace) against employee wants (in many cases to keep working from home).

Like a tug of war, the early pulling was towards people coming back to the workplace. Then "quiet quitting" and a tight labor market pulled the rope back in the direction of working from home. Now the rope seems to be moving back towards the office again.

There are (at least) two problems with the narrative and societal approach to where people work.

• Describing the "where to work" question as a tug of war or something one group will "win" is counterproductive. When we stop pitting groups against each other and instead think as partners that look together for solutions that best meets needs in a complex system, we have a far better chance for long-term success and growth.

• A recent Gallup's State of the Global Workplace report tells us that we have forgotten what we all learned during the pandemic: that as nice as it is to have the flexibility to work from home, it can take a toll on us in other ways - it can be harder to balance work and life activities and hamper overall life satisfaction. The graph below shows that people working in hybrid or remote-capable situations report higher levels to thriving and overall wellness in life.

The Gallup data tells us something else too. One of the big reasons cited for "bringing people back to the office" was to bring engagement and productivity levels up.

Oops.

Gallup's data shows that the most engaged team members are working a fully remote schedule.

What can we take from all of this?

1. We need some patience. The way society views work changed five years ago with a pandemic. We lived with one societal view of work (40 hours a week, onsite, five days a week) for 80 years. 80 years prior to that, the prevalent view was 60-hour workweeks, six days a week. Then we changed it again to work from home when you can, and maybe as much as you can - in a heartbeat. We are still "working through" what this all means. A weekly news cycle won't speed up that process.

2. It is all more complex than just "we want you in the office," or "I want to work from home."

3. The winners won't make a unilateral decision. The best answer won't come from the CEO or the rank and file. And the best answer will be different across organizations, and perhaps even departments or workgroups. And that best answer for your organization - regardless of what it is - will come from real dialogue with everyone as partners looking at the business results and the interpersonal and individual needs together.

What is Your Leadership Identity?

Most of us have asked ourselves “who am I?” at various moments in our lives. I would suggest that more leaders should ask the corollary question. “What kind of a leader am I?” is the leadership identity question – and a useful one.

Useful, but with serious pitfalls, based on how we choose to answer that question.

Thanks for reading. Please reply at any time with questions or feedback for our team.

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