Not Part of the Job Description

So, a significant portion of work is now done remotely and will probably continue to be the case even after the pandemic ends, what advice do you have for empowering members to lead even if it's not part of their job description?

We have already built a flexible work environment where the structures were in place so we had already been on Zoom for over a year and what we've created within the organization is what we call team mandates and then KPIs relating to those team mandates, and so the one thing that I believe allowed us to be extremely trusting and effective during the pandemic is that we did not question whether work was getting done. There's this command-and-control model where you believe you have to see the work they've done and someone has to be at a desk and you have to know that they're at the desk in order to believe that work is getting done. Well, we have created other forms of measurement in our business operations so we didn't have to see people and people knew what they were responsible for, and they were able to continue to move toward those outcomes with the technology that we have put in place, and so at the end of the day, again, we know because of the metrics that we far exceeded what we would've accomplished during that time period, and in fact, during the pandemic, I had to speak to our staff and ask them to try to pause because we know, with all of the pressure and stress from the pandemic itself and families, people losing loved ones, people taking care of their children, becoming teachers in the moment, and taking care of elderly family members, there was a lot of stress in our staff, and what we had to do is allow space to create a new balance for everyone. So, I think what we've done is, yes, there is leadership and we clearly have opportunities for leadership, but we've also built in accountability and we've built in a way of building trust, and those three things go together: leadership, accountability, and trust building.