III What makes flexible working work?
Leadership in flexible work systems
On June 30th, 2017, Madalyn Parker (@madalynrose) tweeted a screenshot of an email exchange between her and her boss, Ben Congleton, CEO. This screenshot contained an initial email from Madalyn detailing her desire to take the next two days off, to focus on her mental health as a means of refreshing herself to come back to work at 100%. Contained in this tweet was her boss’s response to her request. Ben both thanked Madalyn for her email, specifying the importance of using sick days for mental health and questioning why this is not a more standard practice across organizations. Notably, Ben praised Madalyn for being an example to all team members, and that emails such as hers help cut through the stigma of mental illness to ensure that employees can bring their whole selves to work.
This tweet went viral, being shared over 15,000 times, receiving more than 44,000 likes, and catching the attention of several traditional media outlets. The general sentiment was an overwhelmingly positive endorsement of the CEO’s response. Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, praised Ben saying “... Ben showed such compassion and is a great example of why we need more leaders who encourage employees to bring their whole selves to work."
(cited in McGregor, 2017)
Although the story of CEO Ben Congleton is, of course, not explicitly about flexible work schedules, the lesson we can draw from it is just how critical leaders at all levels of the organization are in implementing and supporting broad alternate work arrangements. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the role of organizational leaders in flexible work systems more specifically.1 Flexible work is now widely recognized as not only a workplace benefit, but an expectation, and in response many organizations are developing policies and opportunities for workers to vary the hours they choose to work during the day. For example, recent surveys suggest that 50—90% of organizations across Europe (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2016) and North America (MacLean, 2018) now offer at least one type of flexible work option. However, as we will illustrate, the existence of such policies is only half of the battle. After they have been formally instituted, organizational leaders will serve as gatekeepers, allowing employees who access them to feel psychologically safe, with no implicit threats to their reputations and jobs. In all of this, leaders’ own personal attitudes and behaviors will be critical and will determine whether they support or sabotage the successful implementation of a flexible workplace policy.
Consider the opening story about Madalyn and Ben. Although this story is about using sick days for mental health, it illustrates how comfortable Madalyn was not only to use sick days to fit her personal needs, but also to share why she needed to do so with her boss and colleagues. In response, her CEO not only accepted her reasoning, but praised Madalyn for her candor, suggesting that Madalyn should serve as a role model for other employees in the organization.
What if Ben had been less supportive? Would the existence of such policies still be used if a leader sent a different signal? Alternatively, what if it was Ben who had sent out an email similar to that of Madalyn? Might leaders benefit from flexible work policies in the same way as employees? And what signal would that send to others?
In this chapter, we respond to such questions, and consider the role leaders play within a flexible work system. We believe that flexible work structures for individuals at all levels of the organization can benefit from such programs, enabling their ability to live healthier work, personal, and family lives. We have divided our chapter to enhance our understanding of two topics: (1) how leaders can facilitate flexible work systems for others; and (2) how leaders can take advantage of flexible work systems for themselves. We first discuss why leaders serve a pivotal role in flexible work systems including the benefits for enabling such systems, and the challenges they face in doing so. We then shift focus and consider how individuals in leadership roles themselves may take advantage of flexible work, including the unique benefits to leaders, and the challenges they may face as well. Finally, given its prominence in research attention (Barling, 2014), and the direct benefits to well-being (e.g., Arnold, Turner, Barling, Kel-loway, & McKee, 2007), we conclude by suggesting four transformational leadership behaviors leaders can enact to facilitate the successful implementation and use of a flexible work system within their organization.
