Leadership blind spot: how to support your remote and hybrid people
Controversial opinion: leaders who think or convince themselves into believing that supporting RTO (return to office) policies is the right thing to do are less likely to truly understand and support their teams. I joined IBM half a lifetime (literally!) ago, after an intensive, in person/on site experience at a dot com startup which succumbed to the IT bubble bursting. Ever since then I have only held geographically distributed, cross cultural, and often cross-functional roles. A two year consulting engagement I had with a customer also involved my running mini-projects with stakeholders in six different countries with distinct cultures, languages, and approaches to problem solving. So by the time I became a People Manager in 2021, not only was I well versed in remotely supporting colleagues, upline, and clients, it had become my way of working. With the trend in many companies bringing people back to the office, I am firmly on the side of honouring the remote option for mo...