Abstract

Leadership skills of team members have never been so important, the role of team leaders never so questionable and the interaction between both never so fragile. Too bold? Perhaps… let’s together capitalize on what we have learnt in the pandemic and learn how to implement it in the ‘new normal’.

Being a leader has been extremely challenging throughout the pandemic. Familiar ways of leading simply did not work anymore. As a team leader – more than in usual times - you had to adapt, change, fail, accept, let go and learn. And all of that very quickly. Still, it was and remains a great opportunity of renewal, improvement and innovation at personal, team and work levels.

Our goal is to create the physical, timely and emotional platform for participants to share experiences, be vulnerable and open in order to learn from each other’s experiences and pave the way for stronger peer connections between managers throughout the EARMA community – knowing that there are colleagues out there who might face the same and might be able to support you as a manager in your office with the challenge you are facing.

More specifically, the objective of this session is twofold: exchanging team leadership advice with peers and valorizing together the exceptional circumstances we all faced including lessons learnt and practical implications for the future.

Online meetings, decentralized teams, working from home, finding a deeper meaning in your job and the list can go on. New ways of working is the new black. The keywords expected in the discussions range from resilience, emotional well-being, surprises, strengths and weaknesses, hopes and fears, people management, productivity, energy drains and energy boosters, self-leadership, hybrid work to social cohesion.

This interactive session is particularly useful for team leaders at any levels but is suitable for all research managers in general. We wish to lead the floor for an open, yet guided and well structured, exchange of experiences of research team managers with regard to challenges they faced and new solutions they found particularly useful and which they feel worth sharing with others into the new ERA, to the ‘new normal’.