With advancements in technology and evolving working patterns, we are witnessing a fundamental shift in the way organisations are operating and how team leaders and managers are running teams. In order to keep up to date with evolving working patterns, organisations need to be aware of the trends shaping team leadership and management.
Rise in remote working
Competitive and forward-thinking organisations are embracing the trend of work becoming increasingly decentralised. Teams can now be led, managed and run remotely. Armed with telecommunications and cloud-based technology, astute team leaders are allowing their teams to work more flexibly and build their own processes and workflows.
This freedom can act as an effective way for ideas to be generated more quickly, which can have a positive impact on the overall success of a business. As CIO notes in an article about empowering workforces to work autonomously:
“Increasingly, we’re seeing industry leaders choose tools that help teams embrace this type of agility.”
With the right tools at their disposal, such as video chat and time management software, managing remote workers has become very similar to managing other teams. With the productivity-enhancing benefits of remote working, cultivating flexible working can generate more efficient and industrious teams.
Given the benefits remote working has on productivity, staff morale and overall business success, it is hardly surprising, as research by Deloitte found, 51% of global executives say they plan to increase the use of flexible workers during the next three to five years.
Increased automation
Another trend that is shaping the way businesses manage and run teams is automation. Whilst the automation of workforces, such as self-service checkouts in supermarkets, has been criticised for having negative repercussions on workforces, predominantly by eliminating jobs, automation can help streamline processes, subsequently enhancing efficiency within teams.
By taking care of more mundane but necessary tasks, automation can help free up time, which managers can then spend on other elements of the business. Automating scheduling, timesheets, timetables and more, team leaders can concentrate more time and effort into creative endeavours or carrying out staff appraisals and spending more time boosting wellbeing and morale amongst their teams.
Increase in collective leadership
The traditional model of hierarchical leadership with a ‘big boss’ at the top, followed by a pyramid of managers, each with a considerably inferior status the further down the pyramid they’re positioned, is being increasingly replaced by the notion of ‘collective leadership’.
This more inclusive model of management, involves everyone within an organisation taking responsibility for the success of the business, rather than just being responsible for their own roles. The idea is that if leaders and managers create a positive and supportive environment that encourages everyone to lead and have responsibility of different tasks, greater creativity is encouraged, and organisations are ran with a more creative, supportive and inclusive environment.
As the King’s Fund notes in its paper about ‘Developing collective leadership for health care’:
“Where there is a culture of collective leadership, all staff members are likely to intervene to solve problems, to ensure quality of care and to promote responsible, safe innovation.”
Importance of leadership training and development
Whilst leadership models are undoubtedly changing and trends within the way workforces are managed are being embraced by many organisations keen to adapt to evolving working patterns and practices, the need for quality leadership training and development remains crucial to the success of any business.
The right leadership training will help motivate and train managers to be effective leaders who can go on to inspire teams to do their best work. Whether a team works remotely, embraces automation management tools to free up time, or adapts a collective leadership model within the organisation, effective and regular leadership training and development will ensure leaders continue to be armed with the right knowledge and skills to lead teams at their best.
