If we love and support our team, I know we can build a company and product that positively impacts millions of students all over the world.”CEO, Cadmus
To the cynics in the room, I say, stop a while and think about this before you raise that eyebrow. In my experience, it really is the little things that can potentially have a big impact on team outcomes.
‘Soft management’ techniques, abandoned in favour of tough, tenacious management styles of the 1990s and the 2000s have made a comeback in post-pandemic management styles, ranking employee wellbeing and team culture above business needs (Peace, 1991; Reina et al., 2022). In their post-pandemic report on the future of work, McKinsey Global (Lund et al., 2021) predict a 25% rise in occupation transitions by 2030 due to digital disruption, but also due to employee job satisfaction. People Management predict that by the end of 2023, one in seven UK workers will “job-hop” in search of better conditions, listing empathy and adaptability, support for wellbeing and women’s health as essential behaviours expected from leaders (Birindelli-Fayne, 2023; Cholteva, 2023).
When reflecting on the criterion for the submission for the Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE), I considered the early formation of my team and I found that its every success was achieved, not through hard top-down directives, but through an ethos of mutual support, kindness and care towards each other.
