With hybrid work now a permanent fixture for many organizations, the traditional top-down, in-the-office leadership style no longer works. Luckily, redefining C-level leadership doesn’t mean hiring all new people.
Experts in leadership, like mastermind organizations and C-suite recruiters, are seeing experienced executives meet the needs of a dispersed, digitally connected workforce by rethinking how they communicate, inspire, measure performance, and build culture.
Lead by Influence
In an office setting, your presence conveyed authority. You walked the floor, joined impromptu meetings, chatted in the hallways, and influenced culture by being visible. You don’t have that luxury in a hybrid world.
Now, your communication defines your influence. That means refining your executive presence for digital formats. How do you do this? Here are some examples:
- Define goals clearly and specifically.
- Create virtual spaces to accept feedback and questions, like a digital boardroom, as well as more casual communication, like an online break room.
- Use the same channels of communication for in-person and remote employees.
- Communicate using multiple formats like video, text, slide show, or voice memos.
- Share your availability intentionally and consistently, like setting aside two hours every Thursday for remote product development teams.
- Participate in virtual meetings like you would in person.
- Reach out to team members personally, not always in group messages.
Build Trust Through Accountability
You won’t always see when someone starts or ends their day in a hybrid setting. Using tracking tools to maintain control is tempting—but that’s a trap. Measuring time over results says you don’t trust your team, and it erodes their trust in you. Instead, foster a culture of ownership where outcomes matter more than activity.
Start by setting crystal-clear expectations. Instead of asking, “Are they working?” ask, “Are we working toward the same goals?” Define success for your team and measure progress towards those goals. Maybe you use weekly emails from team leaders to stay up-to-date, or maybe you create shared tasks for a project so you can see progress. However you do it, shifting to outcome-focused work rather than surveillance builds trust in the workplace.
Lead with Empathy
An empathetic leader is the mentor who helps their team understand and remove any roadblocks to success. Start by being transparent in company-wide communications to celebrate strengths and frame weaknesses as learning opportunities. Most of all, face mistakes with empathy to build loyalty and prevent burnout.
Create systems for frequent feedback about projects, training, growth, leadership, technology, culture, and efficiency. It doesn’t have to be a comprehensive survey every day. You could focus a work channel on leadership for a month, where you post observations and ask for comments. Then, the focus could be efficiency or technology tools the next month.
If you notice individuals struggling, don’t jump right to disciplinary action. Say one of your department heads is struggling to meet quarterly goals, so you plan a meeting. You acknowledge their challenges, ask for their proposed solutions, refine their ideas into an action plan, and commit to following up soon.
Design Around Your Culture
Culture can be felt in an office setting—in the energy, the decor, and the casual interactions. It relies on in-person elements that you don’t have in a hybrid workplace. You have to get a little more creative to weave a distinct culture into a hybrid framework.
You can start by designing your leadership models around culture. Maybe expert mentorship has set your company apart from the competition and driven innovation. Designate a leader to take charge of creating coaching groups. Or work with a coaching and mastermind executive search firm to hire a leader to drive mentorship initiatives. If something is a priority for your company culture, make it a priority for your C-level leaders.
You can build culture into your calendar, too. If one of your company’s values is innovation, create repeatable systems to reward experimentation. Host monthly virtual showcases, cross-functional innovation squads, deep creative discussions, or design competitions. The things you make time for demonstrate the importance of your company values.
Lead Through Your Tech Stack
Your teams’ collaboration tools shape your company’s culture as much as your leadership style. After all, extending your influence to remote employees relies on the technology you use. You can lead better by focusing on technology that simplifies communication and empowers asynchronous work.
You don’t need to become an IT expert to lead in a hybrid world. Instead, rely on suggestions from your leaders and teams. Solicit feedback about the company tech stack, or start an executive search for a chief technology officer (CTO). Once you collect new ideas, you lead by championing technology that supports your company’s goals.
Making decisions about how and when to meet also encourages communication and asynchronous work. In a hybrid world, a smart C-level leader knows that not everything requires a meeting. Use regular email updates, recorded training videos, project dashboards, and voice messages to communicate about daily progress asynchronously.
Establish Clear Requirements—and Stick to Them
Hybrid norms vary across companies, and you must create clear systems that meet your company’s needs. Maybe you implement a hybrid schedule where teams agree on anchor days for in-person collaboration and use remote days for deep work. Or maybe you require staff to come in-person for scheduled client presentations.
Whatever you define as hybrid, it’s your responsibility to lead by example. Showing up at the office five days a week while saying flexibility matters sends a mixed message. The same goes for communication. If you decide on a platform for all project communication, use it rather than stopping by the team lead’s office for a chat. Inconsistency in your leadership creates friction across your company.
When you honor hybrid norms as C-level leaders, it demonstrates trust in your people and supports the structured environment your team needs to innovate and adapt.
Adapt and Adjust
Remote work isn’t a passing phase—it’s a shift in how work gets done. Shift your leadership right along with it. When you are flexible, transparent, consistent, empathetic, and purposeful, you position your organization for success online and in person.
