Exploring the future of work, management & leadership

WGSN CEO Carla Buzasi’s conversation with Sarah Moore, PwC’s UK head of workforce, leaves plenty of food for thought about the ways we work and manage people.

This week, we explore the workplace of tomorrow with a focus on the essence of management and leadership. What differentiates a leader from a manager and what does effective management look like?

Find out with Carla and Sarah, who also discuss employer-employee dynamics and how they would affect the future of contemporary workplaces, from the ongoing quest for work-life balance to fostering connectivity amid flexible work arrangements. 

Micro vs macro management styles

“There was a piece of work that my manager asked me to do. And I said, ‘I've done it, but I’ll send it to you before I send it on to the end user.’ And she said, ‘No, I trust you.’ With just those three words, I worked harder on that piece of work because I wasn’t micromanaged to it. It was all done on a mutual, beneficial approach, which I loved and I’ve kept that with me, nabbed that one for my own leadership kitbag.”

The value of trial and error

“In the Hopes and Fears Survey that we commissioned, respondents said only a third of their managers tolerated small-scale failure. And for me, in this world of uncertainty and disruption, you have to experiment, you can’t just take the safe road. Management, to be successful, has to create a safe environment where people can be agile, try new things, fail fast, learn from it and then move on and get better.”

Building connection in the workplace

“It’s critical that organisations find a way of creating and maintaining connection. In our Hopes and Fears Survey, a quarter of people are thinking of leaving their job within the next 12 months. I think there’s something about brand, risk, quality and standards that you can teach remotely, but sometimes you need to feel a place to understand what it stands for.”
– Sarah Moore, UK head of workforce, PwC

Head to Apple or Spotify to hear the full discussion on our Lives of Tomorrow podcast episode, What Makes a Manager – And Do We Still Need Them?