Leading Remotely: How to Take Advantage of the Opportunities
What began as a required response to a world-wide health crisis eventually resulted in a complete shift in how many organizations conduct business. Working from home, whether full-time or situationally, has become common place. While sometimes challenging, working remotely also provides leaders the opportunity to maximize creativity, leverage strengths, and engage with their teams in ways they might never have considered before.
Currently, the consensus is that a sizeable percentage of us will continue to work remotely – partially or fully. The best way to predict that future environment is to invent it. As you assess the opportunities you’ve taken advantage of and those you could adopt to make the foreseeable future more productive and rewarding for you and your team, consider the following:
1) Have you taken advantage of all of the benefits of conducting meetings via videoconferencing?
Videoconferencing with your team provides you with opportunities to enhance team collaboration, easily share work products and information stored on laptops, receive unbiased input on key decisions, and provide your introverts with the opportunity to thrive:
Increase team communication and collaboration by splitting team members into break-out “rooms” to brainstorm or develop possible solutions to issues facing the team. This will increase team cohesion and result in more ideas being presented to the group for consideration.
One or more people can easily share their screens for the group to review/compare work products, view PowerPoints, share videos, etc. Recommended changes can be made in real-time for immediate agreement by the group.
Ensure you get unbiased input by team members by using the polling feature in the videoconference tool for issues under consideration. Conducting a voice poll of your group will often inhibit some members from expressing their true opinion.
Be attentive to getting input from all team members when discussing an issue while keeping the mics of others muted. This will ensure the introverts in your group are heard without interruption.
2) Are you using your current situation to be more visible and to increase the connections within your team?
Chances are the demands of your in-office environment (including travel schedules) precluded you and your team from connecting, individually and as a group, as often as you might have liked. With some intentionality on your part, you can make a dramatic shift in this regard while working remotely:
Ensure that everyone on your team has the same capability to connect, including webcams for all laptops. (Even if their laptops have no camera, one can be purchased for not much more than $100, a small price to pay for the resulting increased connection.) There is no suitable substitute for being able to visually engage with colleagues during a meeting or conversation.
Increase the frequency of your meetings (always using webcams), but make them shorter. Provide your update first to set the tone. Don’t allow your team to schedule back-to-back meetings to avoid videoconference burnout for everyone.
According to Gallup, 70% of an individual’s engagement is driven by their manager. Consider taking this opportunity to move into coaching mode and schedule weekly individual sessions (perhaps thirty-minutes) with everyone on your team. Use this one-on-one time to encourage them to raise any challenges (personal or professional) that are getting in their way and talk through possible solutions or approaches. Be alert for burnout, particularly with your high performers. Remember that individualization is important now. Everyone’s situation is different and requires a different approach on your part.
Increase the connection between team members by pairing them up for peer coaching sessions once a week. This will ensure that they’re providing and receiving support from at least one person other than you every week and will strengthen team relationships. Change out the pairs on a monthly basis to increase engagement throughout the team.
3) Are you using this time away from your daily office grind to provide transformational leadership to your team?
The modern idea of Transformational Leadership is based around four elements described in 1985 by Bernard A. Bass, an American scholar in the fields of leadership studies and organizational behavior:
Idealized Influence. Your team is paying close attention to how you conduct yourself during challenging times. If you have modeled respect for them and continue to build trust in your relationships, they will emulate that and do the same with each other.
Intellectual Stimulation. This is a perfect opportunity to challenge your assumptions and to encourage your team to do the same. New ways of working are a must. Risk-taking should be encouraged and mistakes viewed as learning opportunities. When presented with new challenges, ideas should be solicited from the team first before presenting your own.
Individualized Consideration. The weekly coaching sessions encouraged above are ideal opportunities to attend to each team member’s needs, whether professional or personal. These are good opportunities to learn each team member’s strengths and how together they can create a diverse mosaic of talents to achieve team objectives.
Inspirational Motivation. A leader is expected to look over the horizon, provide a vision for the team, and inspire the team to fulfill that vision. Be sure to set aside time for reflection resulting in a well-defined purpose and meaning to drive your team forward.
Leading teams and individuals successfully while working remotely is not accidental. It is about how you make it work for you, your supervisors, and employees.