1. Boost Morale with Emotion
As a remote leader, be a source of enthusiasm, encouragement, and creativity. Remote workers miss out on in-person emotional support, so your positive influence can significantly impact their day.
2. Personalize Your Approach
Recognize that team members are motivated in different ways. Some thrive on encouragement, while others may not. Understand individual preferences for recognition and interaction. Utilize profile assessment tools to better tailor your approach. Reach out to us if you need help choosing the right tool.
3. Prioritize Face-to-Face Interactions
People tend to communicate better and bond more strongly over video calls. As a result, audio calls do not foster as much trust among team members. Video calls are not always appropriate, but look for opportunities in which video calls may be preferable to audio calls.
4. Facilitate Belonging and Team Learning
In addition to promoting productive communication, video conferences with the remote team also facilitate an environment of belonging and team learning. Informal interaction at the beginning of team video conferences can promote a sense of belonging. These informal interactions can be as simple as sharing what’s new in each person’s life, or team members sharing knowledge they found helpful since the last team conference. For a remote leader, these strategies promote a sense of individual belonging and knowledge sharing.
5. Emphasize Mentoring, Not Just Transactions
Mentoring remotely requires a leader to be more intentional. Communications consisting entirely of information transactions do not foster trust or bonding among team members. It is easy to overlook coaching moments and learning opportunities while leading remotely—ensure that you are intentional in engaging in mentoring-based communications with your remote workers.
6. Use Email Judiciously
Email may be the most overused communication tool in the workplace. It is often used to quickly get things off your plate and onto someone else’s, which can lead to poor communication in a remote work setting. Remote workers are more reliant on electronic communications, so as a remote leader you should continually check your use of email. Before you send that quick email, think about picking up the phone instead.
7. Focus on Removing Obstacles
Hiring great people isn’t enough to ensure the success of your business; you must also remove obstacles that impair the success of your workers. As a remote leader, ensure that you regularly ask your remote workers, “What do you need from me?” I have found that a simple text— “Are you okay? Do you need anything from me?” is a great way to promote productive conversation and connection with remote workers. Asking these questions does not replace other communications, but in today’s busy world, simply checking in with remote workers can be effective in building productive remote working relationships.
8. Serve Your Team
Mentoring remotely requires a leader to be more intentional. Communications consisting entirely of information transactions do not foster trust or bonding among team members. It is easy to overlook coaching moments and learning opportunities while leading remotely—ensure that you are intentional in engaging in mentoring-based communications with your remote workers.
9. Set Boundaries and Maintain Balance
When working remotely, it can be difficult to maintain boundaries between your work and your personal life. In order to maximize the productivity of yourself and your team, establish clear boundaries around your time and attention. Set clear times for when your attention is on work and separate times for when your attention is on your personal priorities. Then, share these boundaries with your team in order to set appropriate expectations on the response and support you will be able to provide as a remote leader. In terms of boundaries, do not expect anything from your team that you would not expect from yourself.
In Conclusion
Remote leadership can be challenging. As we all navigate our current circumstances, we have the opportunity to learn this new skill which could prove advantageous. These 9 tips do not form a complete guide to remote leadership. There is much more to say about specific technology tools and even leadership basics such as vision casting and goal setting. However, TeamBuilder Search hopes to validate your current efforts and to introduce some effective strategies in navigating remote leadership. Contact us for more tips on leading and building your team.
