Over the past couple of years, remote working has become increasingly popular. There are several reasons for this: the pandemic, the improvement of technology, and the effects on employee wellbeing.
It doesn’t come without its challenges, though. Being able to lead a successful fully-remote team can be tricky. You can’t hold face-to-face meetings, and some employees may have to deal with distractions at home.
You need excellent leadership skills and a ton of effort to get it right. Here is how.
Host Regular Meetings
Hosting regular meetings is an integral part of leading a successful fully-remote team. It helps you keep up with employees and address issues, and it makes the team feel like they’re a combined team.
Don’t forget about one-on-one meetings, too.
Talk directly to individual team members to ensure everyone is progressing as they should. During these meetings, you can also address concerns from the employees that they might not feel comfortable bringing up in team meetings.
Reward Hard Work
Some employees may feel like managers don’t notice their efforts as much when they work from home. As a remote team leader, it’s up to you to note when workers perform well by rewarding them. Of course, you could offer the usual rewards like bonuses, coupons, and time off, but don’t just focus on that.
For optimal remote team leadership, you need to provide growth opportunities. Keep up with employee performance so that you know when it is time for an employee to progress in their career, and you can provide opportunities for them to do so.
Build Trust
Even in a familiar working environment, you can’t completely control how the employees work.
Micro-management isn’t how you motivate a team.
Instead, it leaves them feeling like they aren’t trusted. Instead, build trust – both ways.
Trust your team to reach their goals on time, and make sure they trust you to lead them to success. Trust makes a world of difference when it comes to better leadership.
Set Clear Expectations
If you want results from your remote workers, you will often need to set clear expectations. After all, you aren’t physically in the room with them, so you can’t consistently check up on their progress.
So instead, set clear expectations from the get-go to know what they’re doing and when to do it. It’ll make work easier for everyone!
Focus on Results
Some leaders focus more on how workers get to the end result rather than the actual result. That is a mistake, especially when it comes to remote working. Let your team get to their outcomes in their own way, without having their leader get too involved.
Measure performance by outcomes rather than how long the worker sits at their desk. If you do this, you’re more likely to get the results you are aiming at.
Leading a remote team is often hard work and requires adapting your leadership techniques. You’ll find success once you fall into a workday rhythm built on trust, communication, and results.
