Leading remotely

We can't guess what awaits us in 2022, however we know that teleworking is here to stay. Forcibly between 2 and 9 January, but everything seems to point to a future where the office will be present in the lives of employees on a hybrid basis, sometimes remotely, sometimes face-to-face. Therefore, it will certainly be pertinent to put the lessons learned in the past year and a half into practice, to ensure effective leadership, because a successful leader in a physical context is not necessarily so in a remote one.

Remote leadership should be, essentially, focused on people. Quoting Misha Byrne, speaker from SingularityU Portugal, who participated in a Nova SBE webinar on the topic, communication with employees "doesn't have to be one thing in excess, it should be about creating time and space for the team to have conversations they may not be having" and ensuring that it overcomes the empathy gap created by online relationships. Of course, this type of communication is not as in-depth as face-to-face, however, despite all the challenges, it can bring a number of opportunities.

According to Professor Milton de Sousa, if it is true that physical distance can promote isolation, it is also true that the democratisation of communication processes achieved with remote work can give more space to more shy collaborators and help create a culture of sharing.

To ensure that these benefits outweigh the challenges, leadership in the remote context needs to ensure three components: effectiveness, a sense of belonging, and autonomy. And this requires communication - deliberately and consistently.

A large part of the culture of trust in organizations arises with the "casual" daily communication, which exists spontaneously in face-to-face, but which is difficult to recreate in teleworking. For this reason, the small moments of interaction should be planned: starting and ending the week with a team meeting is a good way to align priorities and establish points of situation; scheduling a virtual happy hour with the other workers at the end of the day can help maintain a close relationship outside the office; and promoting workshops on remote work can help to understand the challenges that everyone is going through at home.

Above all, leading well remotely is communicating effectively.

‍

This text is republished under a partnership with PME Magazine - Read the original article here.