Leading a virtual workforce: How to sound like you know what you're doing

Everyone has an opinion on this topic. Here are some simple ways to be the most knowledgeable, and demonstrate that you are a Brilliant Leader

Photo by Bernt Dittrich on Unsplash

It’s been a few years since the pandemic ended but the topic of hybrid working still rages on. It’s a complicated issue that generates a lot of noise and emotion. Chances are your boss, your colleagues and the people you manage will have a wide range of strongly held opinions on the subject.

As a Brilliant Leader you need to be able to sound like an expert on this complex issue. This may appear daunting but happily, as a Self-appointed Leadership Expert I am here to help you do exactly this!

Good news! Your opinion – whatever it is - is backed by research!

Everyone’s got an opinion about hybrid working, and you will encounter lots of people whose views differ from yours. Happily, proving them wrong is very straightforward, as there is a wealth of research you can draw on to back you up.

You’ll note that I haven’t yet asked what your opinion is, and that’s the beauty of this topic: it doesn’t matter! Whether you are a believer in hybrid working or not, you can find a bunch of academic papers to support you, and thereby demonstrate that not only are you a Brilliant Leader, but you also rely on robust evidence for your opinions.

A brief search online will turn up papers showing improved performance when working from home, a drop in performance, and no difference whatsoever. Some research shows a positive impact for women and carers, other papers have seen negative outcomes. Basically, every possible outcome has been proved in a research paper somewhere

There are a few reasons for the wild variance in findings. It hasn’t been that long since the pandemic so we don’t have any longitudinal studies, and there’s also been an explosion in dodgy scientific journals offering to publish papers for money so the bar for published research has never been lower.

But mostly it’s really, really difficult to measure employee productivity in any way other than by asking people or their managers if they think they work harder at home or in the office¹, and it’s not hard to see how this sort of research can go south very quickly; if I like working from my sofa and someone in a white coat asks me if I’m more productive lying there in front of the telly all day long then I know exactly what I’m going to tell them.

As a Brilliant Leader there are two things you can take from this state of affairs. Firstly, you can air whatever opinion you want on the topic, no matter how bonkers. When your colleagues reel backwards aghast, add “at least, this is what the latest scientific research is telling us”.

This should be enough, but if anyone asks to actually see this research then don’t sweat. It is a safe bet that just a few minutes digging online should surface a paper that will back you up. And if you’re really desperate, get AI to write you a paper and find a spiffy-looking academic journal that will charge you around $50 to publish it.

Secondly, if a less Brilliant Leader attempts to play this same trick on you then ask for the research they’re referring to. Should they actually provide this then shake your head gently and affect a benevolent smile, much as you would if listening to a four-year-old try and explain quantum mechanics.

“Ah” you say kindly. “I see the issue. I think most serious researchers would have an issue with how [insert researcher’s name] defines productivity in that paper. It’s a very reductive model and not one that credible academics have been using for some time.”

Theory X, theory Y and Moncrief’s theory of hybrid work^©

Lastly, as a Self-appointed Leadership Expert I will help you understand how to spot the myriad opinions and sweeping prejudices you will encounter from others on this topic, and to do this we will use Moncrief’s theory of hybrid work^©.

My theory has two inputs. First, the work of Douglas McGregor. Back in the 1960s McGregor came up with two somewhat polarised views of workers that managers tend to hold. Theory X states that all workers are fundamentally bone idle, determined to avoid work at all costs and do the bare minimum to get to the next pay check without being fired.

Theory Y takes a warmer view of human nature, arguing that employees are innately hard-working, motivated to do the best job they can, and generally good eggs. All managers, McGregor claimed, view their workforce through one of these two lenses.

The second input to my model is age. A few millennia ago the first sentient being emerged from the primordial swamp and reached middle age. As they hit this milestone, they began to express the view that the younger generation weren’t as robust / impressive / hard-working as they were at the same age.

This pattern has held true ever since; as people get older they are more and more disparaging of the young. (If you don’t believe me then I refer you to several soon-to-be-published papers I have written on this subject in the Journal of Academic Journals).

All of which gives us a simple two x two matrix that allows you to predict with confidence exactly what views you will encounter from your co-workers: simply see if you can spot a few grey hairs on their head and ask them if the glass on their desk is half-full or half-empty. You can then place them in the below matrix:

Equipped with these tools you are well-prepared not only to express well-researched and impressive views on hybrid work, but also to dismiss and out-argue your peers and rivals. With these skills you will continue to grow and progress your career as a Brilliant Leader.

You’re welcome!

1. The exception to this is jobs where work can be broken down into measurable units, such as call centres, which is unsurprisingly where a lot of the research focuses – but that’s less relevant for most of us.