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Forbes
7 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
Psychological Closeness: The New KPI For Remote Leaders
In the industrial age, productivity was measured by hours spent on the assembly line. If you were physically present, you were assumed to be productive. That made sense when work was tangible and output was visible. In today's digital and hybrid workplace, this old metric has lost its power. You can be in the same room and still feel disconnected. You can also be thousands of miles apart and feel deeply in sync. The real driver of performance now is psychological closeness — the felt sense of connection between leader and team member — and leaders who measure and build it are setting themselves apart. Remote work is no longer a temporary fix. At its pandemic peak, more than 60 percent of workdays were done from home. Today, that number has settled at about 25 percent, and it has held steady for two years, according to research from the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy. Only about 12 percent of executives with remote or hybrid staff say they plan new mandates in the coming year, and even high-profile return-to-office pushes have not moved the needle much. In this environment, managing by physical presence is no longer a winning strategy. What matters most is whether people feel connected, supported, and able to reach their leader. Managing by presence felt is the new competitive edge. What Is Psychological Closeness? Professor Olga Epitropaki of Durham University, who has studied remote and hybrid leadership extensively, defines psychological distance as the perceived gap between leader and employee. Closeness is the inverse: a sense of connection that strengthens trust, engagement, and the willingness to go the extra mile. "You may be far apart in physical space, but perceived closeness grows through empathy or transparency," Epitropaki explains. "Likewise, you can be in the same room and still feel distant if trust is not there." Her research, conducted in collaboration with Anders Marstand and Ilias Kapoutsis, shows that in remote contexts, combining empathy with a clear big-picture vision reduces psychological distance, leading to better performance and stronger discretionary effort. Why It Matters for Remote Leaders Closeness is not just a feel-good factor. It is a performance driver. When employees feel their leader is accessible, attentive, and invested in their success, they are more likely to stay engaged and contribute beyond what is required. This is especially critical in remote and hybrid models, where informal interactions and visual cues are limited. Leaders who fail to foster closeness risk seeing motivation erode. People may show up to virtual meetings, meet deadlines, and hit targets in the short term, but without a felt sense of connection, they are less likely to bring creativity, energy, and long-term commitment. How to Build Psychological Closeness Epitropaki emphasizes that empathy must be intentional. "Even if no one uses the open door, the signal that you are here and available matters," she says. Leaders can create closeness by: But empathy is only the first step. "There is empathy, and then there is compassion," Epitropaki adds. "Compassion takes it one step further. You act on what you have heard. You follow up. You work to address the concerns that have been raised." In practice, this means turning listening into visible action: removing a roadblock, championing an idea, or ensuring resources get to the right place. Leaders also need training in empathy, not just management. This includes balancing cognitive empathy (understanding how someone feels) with emotional empathy (sharing that feeling) in a way that shows care without losing objectivity. The Accountability Connection Some leaders worry that too much empathy will make it harder to hold people accountable. The opposite is true when it is done well. "Empathy is the first step," Epitropaki says. "It does not mean conflict resolution, or that we cannot have tough, accountability-driven conversations. It is the foundation." When accountability is built on trust and connection, it feels fair and motivating rather than punitive. Employees are more willing to stretch, take feedback, and commit to improvement. Making Closeness a Measurable KPI If you want to lead effectively in a hybrid or remote world, you need to measure closeness as seriously as you measure output. Before you track the numbers, tell your team why their feedback matters and how you will use it. Then ask questions like: Track these responses over time. Look for patterns across projects or team members, and act on what you learn. When employees see that their input leads to change, closeness grows. From Soft Skill to Strategic Edge Psychological closeness is not just a leadership nicety. It is a strategic capability. In a distributed work environment, it fuels engagement, retention, and performance. Leaders who master it gain a competitive advantage, not just in managing today's teams but in attracting tomorrow's talent. Leadership in the digital age is not about logging the most hours in the same space. It is about being emotionally present, strategically visible, and humanly connected. That is how you build teams that thrive: Not through physical proximity, but through proximity felt.
Fast Company
23-07-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
Why leaders should build teams less like machines and more like ecosystems
We still use industrial-age language to describe work: running like clockwork, tightening bolts, and burning the midnight oil. Those phrases made sense when productivity meant turning raw material into widgets. But in an era of climate disruption, AI acceleration, and record-high burnout, a purely mechanical model can't keep up. It drives us to measure hours instead of impact and speed instead of sustainability. Today, with artificial intelligence reshaping knowledge work and climate urgency redefining corporate responsibility, it's time for a new vision of productivity—one centered on human and planetary flourishing, not just output. The next evolution of work demands a shift from efficiency to emergence, from silos to systems, and from time-tracking to meaning-making. From Machines to Living Systems The metaphors we use drive the systems we design. Treat an organization like a machine and you'll optimize for speed, control, and predictable outputs. Treat it like a living system—dynamic, interdependent, and regenerative—and a different design logic emerges. Here's what changes when we swap gears for genes: Sense-and-respond edges. Like cell membranes, customer-facing teams become sensors that provide real-time insights back to the core, allowing the entire organization to adapt quickly. Organizational metabolism. Energy (attention, data, and trust) is metabolized into creativity, innovation, and renewal, not just raw output. Cultural homeostasis. Healthy feedback loops foster psychological safety and inclusion, ensuring the system remains vibrant even as external conditions change. Seeing companies this way frees leaders from predicting the future; instead, they cultivate conditions in which emergent intelligence can thrive. Measuring Vitality, Not Just Time The hours worked show little correlation with the value created. What matters is employee vitality, the degree to which people feel rested, connected, and empowered to take risks and experiment. Global four-day-week pilots demonstrate the benefits: burnout dropped by 71%, stress decreased by 39%, carbon emissions are noticeably lower, and retention is markedly higher. Microsoft Japan 's Work-Life Choice Challenge, a four-day workweek pilot, proves this point. By closing offices every Friday (while maintaining pay), sales per employee increased by roughly 40%, energy use decreased by 23%, and printing costs dropped by 60%. The gains weren't the result of heroic hustle; they were the fruit of redesigning the system itself. Letting AI Amplify Humanity AI can be the scaffolding for a more human-centric enterprise. Routine analysis that once devoured strategic attention now finishes in minutes. In my advisory work, I have seen leadership teams channel the freed-up bandwidth into scenario building, story crafting, and high-trust stakeholder dialogues. McKinsey estimates that generative AI could lift labor productivity growth by up to 3.4 percentage points per year through 2040. Those gains appear only when roles are deliberately reinvented, not merely automated. This isn't AI versus humans; it's AI with humans. From Linear Growth to Regenerative GROWTH If the industrial era taught us to measure work in widgets and hours, the new era demands a more integrated lens, one that blends systems thinking, emotional intelligence, and regenerative design. To translate organism thinking into everyday practice, we developed the GROWTH framework—a six-step shift from extractive output to regenerative impact: G – Generate New Metaphors: Swap 'factory' for 'forest,' and 'assembly line' for 'ecosystem.' Fresh language surfaces hidden assumptions and fresh design options. R – Reimagine Human Roles: Let AI handle the rote tasks so people can focus on curiosity, synthesis, and relationship-building. O – Optimize for Human Vitality: Prioritize rest, autonomy, and connection; vital people compound long-term value. W – Work in Ecosystems: Replace silos with cross-functional guilds that share data, talent, and learning loops. Complexity is tamed through connection. T – Track Whole Metrics: Pair profit with carbon avoided, bias reduced, and ideas shipped. What gets measured gets improved. H – Harvest Regeneration: Design projects that return energy to the system—employee upskilling, circular supply chains, and community partnerships. Questions to Spark the Shift Changing how we think about productivity begins with changing our questions. Use the prompts below in leadership sessions, strategy retreats, or team huddles to surface hidden assumptions and align around a more human-centered, system-aware approach to work. Which metaphors dominate our language today, and what behaviors do they reinforce? Where could AI relieve cognitive or emotional load so humans can do higher-order work? What value are we creating that isn't yet on a scorecard—culture, climate, social trust? If we trimmed hours by 10%, where would vitality and innovation likely rise? What small regenerative habit—repair, reuse, reflective pause—could we start this quarter? We stand at a crossroads. We can cling to mechanical models that view people as cogs and growth as linear output, or we can adopt a living-systems mindset where vitality, adaptability, and shared purpose define productivity. Redesigned productivity isn't about working less; it's about working more wisely. The future won't be built by those who clock the longest hours. It will be built by those who design the richest conditions for creativity, connection, and contribution. The machine age is ending; the living-system era has begun. Let's grow accordingly.
