09th April 2026
How to Lead Hybrid Teams with Emotional Intelligence
Hybrid leadership requires a new level of emotional intelligence to build connection, trust and performance. Dustin Lemick highlights how leaders must intentionally create connection, read digital cues and shift to trust-based leadership. Success in hybrid work depends not on visibility, but on understanding people and designing environments where they can thrive.
This article was written by Dustin Lemick and published in Fast Company.
There’s an old saying in leadership circles: “People don’t leave companies, they leave managers.” But in our hybrid reality, I’d argue that language needs an update.
Today, people leave managers who can’t see them. Those managers never learned to read a room that spans multiple screens and time zones.
When I started building my jewelry insurance company BriteCo, I quickly realized that leading a team in a hybrid environment required fundamentally rewiring how I connect with people. In the jewelry insurance space, we deal with items that hold deep emotional significance for our customers. That sensitivity to emotion must extend to how we lead our teams.
So, it was less about mastering Zoom backgrounds or perfecting mute-button timing, and more about developing an entirely new emotional vocabulary for leadership.
1. Build hybrid hallways
One of the most valuable aspects of in-person work has always been what I call the “hallway conversation”—those spontaneous moments where someone has a question, turns to the person next to them, and sparks an idea that changes everything.
At BriteCo, we’ve seen countless examples of this when an employee pops into a colleague’s office with a half-formed thought, and 20 minutes later, there’s a breakthrough.
The honest truth? This doesn’t happen the same way when you’re remote. It just doesn’t. But that doesn’t mean it can’t happen at all. Hybrid leaders can architect these moments intentionally.
So, we’ve learned to create structured spontaneity with dedicated Slack channels for random ideas, virtual coffee chats that aren’t about projects, and in-office days designed specifically for collaboration rather than heads-down work.
The emotional intelligence required is about sensing when someone’s creative energy is building and giving it space to emerge, whether that person is sitting across from you or appearing in a small rectangle on your screen.
2. Get new glasses for emotional insight
Here’s something I’ve had to admit to myself: It’s very hard to read the room over Zoom. Those subtle emotional cues—a slight postural shift, a quick glance between colleagues, or a drop in energy when an idea doesn’t land—are muted or invisible in a virtual setting.
I’ve learned to become more direct about emotional check-ins while also developing a sharper eye for digital cues. Is someone suddenly turning off their camera more often? Are their messages shorter and less engaged? Has their response time changed?
I’ve started asking questions I never would have asked before. I’ll ask, “How are you really doing?” and actually wait for the answer. Or, “What’s one thing that frustrated you this week?”
These questions are intelligence-gathering for leaders who are no longer reliant on physical presence alone.
3. Build trust-based leadership
I’ll be blunt: For some people, remote work can promote laziness. The flip side is equally true—some people do their best work from home, without the commute, in an environment where they feel comfortable and focused.
The old model of leadership assumed that visibility equaled productivity. If you could see someone at their desk, they were working. That shortcut is gone now, and frankly, it was never a great metric anyway.
At BriteCo, we’ve moved toward trust-based leadership, which actually requires more emotional intelligence, not less. Understanding each team member well enough means knowing what conditions help them thrive.
Read this article in full here: Master hybrid leadership through emotional intelligence
