How to lead hybrid teams of employees and independent consultants
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After 25 years helping companies build teams, I've seen white-collar work evolve through tech booms, market crashes, and management fads. But today's shift is more foundational: hybrid teams—made up of both full-time employees and independent consultants—are becoming the new norm. That shift isn't just changing how we hire. It's redefining how we lead.
This transformation isn't loud. There's no single event driving it. Instead, we're seeing the cumulative effects of digital communication, the rise of remote work, and AI accelerating the unbundling of traditional roles. Layer in economic uncertainty and a demand for agility, and you get a workplace where roles are modular, teams are fluid, and independent consultants are often at the center of mission-critical work.
According to the Barton Partnership's 2024–25 Independent Consulting & Advisory in Review Report, a survey of over 8,500 independent consultants, more than half of independent consultants have been working this way for over five years. And they're not just filling gaps. Over 40% of projects covered in the report focus on strategic advisory or business transformation—core priorities, not side projects. Given the prevalence of hybrid teams, it's important managers understand how to lead them.
The challenges of leading hybrid teams
Hybrid teams promise flexibility and specialization. But they also create friction points. Independent consultants don't typically have access to the same tools or context as full-timers. They're rarely looped into company rituals or cultural onboarding. And because they often work across clients, they expect efficiency, not red tape.
At the same time, full-time employees may not know how to integrate or collaborate effectively with project-based teammates. Who leads? Who owns decisions? What's the chain of command?
If leaders don't proactively address these gaps, hybrid teams can underperform—even when every person on the team is highly capable.
New rules of engagement
To lead hybrid teams effectively, we need new playbooks. Below are four principles I've seen work across industries—from Fortune 500s to high-growth startups.
1. Treat consultants like partners
Independent consultants may not appear on your org chart, but they're often just as vital to outcomes as your full-timers. Treat them like partners, not vendors. That means sharing strategic context, offering meaningful feedback, and giving them a seat at the (virtual) table when decisions affect their work.
In one client engagement, a consultant brought in to redesign pricing models ended up shaping the entire customer segmentation strategy—because the executive team treated her as a partner, not as a temporary resource with limited ability to contribute.
2. Build clarity, not bureaucracy
Independent consultants don't need training portals or team-building retreats. What they do need is clarity: What's the objective? Who makes decisions? How do we define success? For example, a global healthcare client I advised included consultants in key all-hands meetings during a transformation initiative. The move cost nothing but created buy-in, accelerated delivery, and avoided misalignment across internal and external contributors.
A private equity-backed company I worked with created a one-page onboarding doc for every independent consultant engagement. It included scope, stakeholders, communication cadence, and KPIs. It wasn't fancy—but it saved hours of friction and got everyone aligned on day one.
3. Culture counts—for everyone
Too often, leaders assume that culture building is just for full-time employees. But independent consultants contribute to outcomes and influence team dynamics, too. Even if they're only involved for a few months, they should understand the 'why' behind the work—what drives decisions, what behaviors are rewarded, and how the team operates.
That doesn't mean inviting them to every offsite or virtual happy hour—especially when it might require unpaid time or travel. But it does mean being intentional about cultural signals. One global fintech client I worked with included independents in project kickoff rituals and team Slack channels where norms were discussed openly. Another offered every consultant a quick-start 'culture brief' with core values, communication styles, and meeting etiquette—nothing formal, just practical context to help them plug in.
Small gestures like these help independent contributors feel included, aligned, and empowered to deliver—not just execute. When people understand the culture, they make better decisions faster, regardless of their employment status.
For example, a global healthcare client I advised included consultants in key all-hands meetings during a transformation initiative. The move cost nothing but created buy-in, accelerated delivery, and avoided misalignment across internal and external contributors.
4. Respect the boundaries that make consulting appealing
Most consultants choose independence for a reason: flexibility, autonomy, and variety. Micromanaging or overloading them with administrative burdens undermines what makes the model effective. Set expectations, provide access, and then let them deliver.
One enterprise client I worked with gave consultants direct access to the systems and stakeholders they needed—no ticketing queues, no multi-step approval chains. By clearing a path and trusting their expertise, the company sped up delivery and avoided the kind of bottlenecks that often frustrate external contributors. That's what the best hybrid leaders do: they don't treat consultants like employees. They treat them like experts.
The future of leadership is situational
Hybrid teams aren't an experiment anymore—they're a structural change. That means leadership itself needs to evolve. Today's best leaders don't rely on static team structures or one-size-fits-all management styles. They flex. They tailor how they lead based on who's in the room (or on the Zoom call), what the mission is, and how the work gets done.
Whether you're a startup founder, a team lead inside a multinational corporation, or a consultant navigating both worlds, one thing is clear: success in today's workplace requires more than staffing roles. It demands fluency across models—full-time, freelance, and everything in between.
That shift might be quiet compared to other workplace trends. But it's not going away.
The early-rate deadline for Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies Awards is Friday, September 5, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply today.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mike Doud is Executive Vice President, North America, at The Barton Partnership, where he leads the London-based firm's strategic growth across the region. A human capital industry executive for more than two decades, he's spent his career building teams and aligning talent strategy with business results. More
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