On Leading Remotely …

The following are random thoughts on leadership, more specifically, on leading remotelyand the insights gained from my personal experience. Just to be clear, when I refer to “my personal experience”, I mean things that I have experienced from people I work with, and not simply from the perspective of leading others. I don’t claim to have a solution to some of the observations I make below, but the first step is being mindful of them and trying to alleviate their impact. So here it goes …

People need to feel connected – remote work has stripped leaders from so many powers they took for granted during office days. One of these powers is “seeing and conversing” with no intent aside from simple that! Although it seemed aimless when we did it back then, when it was taken away from us, we realized how important it was for us to feel connected to others. To know that we were more than the work that was assigned to us. To know we mattered and someone thought we made a difference in their lives. “Where is Jane today, I didn’t see her this morning at the coffee machine, does anyone know if she’s ok?” Give this a try: Call up Jane randomly and just chat for a couple of minutes, make this a consistent effort, but don’t make it seem like a scheduled one, after all when you used to run into her at the coffee machine every morning, you weren’t planning for that to happen.
Lead in their shoes – if there was ever a time for leaders to develop their sense of empathy, it would be now! Ironically, it’s even harder to do it now that we only make an effort to see or talk to our people when we’re asking them about work. At least back in the days, if we had an ounce of observational skills, we could tell that a colleague seemed off, or looked tired, or angry, etc … we also had a notion of what working hours looked like, regardless of how much of a workaholic one was. The assumption that our problems are less because we’re working in our boxer shorts or slippers and close to our loved ones, couldn’t be further away from the truth. Give this a try: Stop sending emails after a certain hour or on weekends, even if you’re not asking for an immediate response. PS. Don’t write up all your emails on the weekend and then blast them off in one shot on Monday at 8:00 am – that can be equally overwhelming. What you are dubbing as efficient and results-driven is being seen by others as inconsiderate, demotivating, and sometimes even intimidating.
Email does not replace conversation – Email has made our work lives much easier and has allowed us to keep track of our business communication for future reference – a statement I completely agree with. However, we used to mix things up, we used to also pick up the phone and call Jane to tell her about that report and give her some context, or run into her in the hallway and talk about that particular ask. Emails strip away many things from the conversation, mainly a) details: too many details and it won’t be read, too little and you risk it being misunderstood, and b) emotions: let’s face it, you’re not trying to write poetry, so your email will probably be void of any emotions – it’s words on the screen and depending on my mood, I will read differently and attach a tone to them, that is probably not the one you intended, and therefore deliver the wrong message. Give this a try – Call Jane and tell her about this new project, and tell her you’ll be sending her an email about this later but just wanted to tell her about it and discuss it with her before doing so.

These are the top three for me and I know there are many more. What are some of your insights on leading remotely?