The Role of the Leader: Is the Pandemic a New Opportunity for the Leader-Coach?
Ana’s viewpoint on how the topic of leadership and their role when managing change and remote teams.
Link to original publication in portuguese.
Eng version below
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Suddenly, “that won’t work” for our business, for our culture, for our clients, started to work. But what about the leaders? How does their role change when managing a remote team?
As someone who has been helping organizational leaders develop their coaching skills with their teams for over twenty years, the context we live in today, with all the pain and hardship it has brought, has presented a social experiment that has left me genuinely curious. It has (temporarily?) brought profound changes to the way many people work in organizations. Suddenly, within a week, companies across various sectors, which previously thought that their business was incompatible with remote work, had the entire company (or nearly) operating remotely. And just as suddenly, “that won’t work” for our business, for our culture, for our clients, started to work. But for leaders, how has their role evolved with teams now working from a distance?
This situation offers a unique opportunity to transform how they exercise their role, abandoning or at least loosening the so-called “command and control” model. After all, it’s become clear that people can work effectively without needing to be constantly monitored or physically present with their boss.
So, what is now expected of a leader? They can become a coach, a learning partner who both supports and challenges. They don’t have all the answers, not even the best ones—nobody does. Leaders and employees must seek those answers together, especially in moments like this, where the pandemic has further accelerated the pace of change (and uncertainty) that technology was already bringing. The leader becomes a Coach Leader. In this role, they shift from a constant “action mode” of “problem-solving” to one of supporting and challenging their employees’ development. It’s about pausing, listening, observing, giving and receiving feedback, asking questions. Viewing the relationship between leader and team member as a continuous opportunity for growth for both.
With clear and co-created expectations, employees can self-regulate: deciding when they need to work late or when they need to leave early to take their child to the park, exercise, or accompany a parent to a doctor’s appointment.
In reality, the concept of the Coach Leader has been around for years… and for a long time, I’ve felt the resistance that this approach generates in our culture: “I don’t have time for that,” “my company expects immediate results.” And the obstacles don’t just come from the leaders but also from the team members. I recall a German CEO I worked with who would leave the office at 5 p.m. to pick up her son from school. The employees, accustomed to previous male CEOs who stayed until dinner time, questioned whether she was truly committed to her role. In fact, she was trying to model a culture where people focused on the results they achieved rather than the hours spent in the office. I also remember a Dutch CEO who was criticized by his team for not stepping in to resolve conflicts between departments or make the final decision. He saw himself more as a coach, helping his team understand what was preventing them from making a decision rather than being the one to deliver a “verdict.”
I find myself both curious and hopeful. Once the pandemic passes and the overwhelming feeling we are currently experiencing subsides, to what extent will our belief in “command and control” be shaken? And what space will open up for the Coach Leader and the empowerment of their teams? It definitely seems like an opportunity worth seizing, as the pandemic appears to be accelerating the changes that digitalization and the VUCA world had already set in motion, and the Coach Leader seems to be a more promising model to address these challenges.
