The ingredients for good remote leadership

A daily stand-up info meeting, just dropping in on someone to close a loop or the quick chat by the coffee machine to ask how someone is doing: these are all things that vanish when all (or most of) your team is working from home. Just as you can no longer see whether people are working or preferring to spend their time on the washing, their pet or their hobby.

Trust is the key ingredient if you are managing from a distance. Trusting that people will do their work even when no-one is watching. Trusting that they are well able to decide for themselves when they will be most productive in their home environment, and in what sequence and what way they will do their work. In fact, this boils down to giving them autonomy. Something which has been proven to make people more productive, happier and healthier.

Hand in hand met het geven van autonomie, gaat het sturen op resultaat in plaats van op proces. Dat betekent niet dat je pas aan het eind van de rit iets te zien hoeft te krijgen. Je kunt uiteraard om tussenHand in hand with allowing autonomy comes management by results instead of by process. This does not mean that you only get to see something at the end of the road. You can request interim updates, discuss the state of progress and ask if they have encountered any sticking points.

Managing by results cannot work unless the goals and agreements are clear. Because what is the target result? When does it need to be ready? Who is responsible for it? And when is someone supposed to raise the alarm if something goes wrong? The clearer the goals and agreements are, the better you can help if something threatens to go off the rails.

Whereas when you are in the office you can talk to people ad hoc, and by doing this can sometimes get things agreed with almost no effort, this is not possible remotely. In addition, some employees get the feeling when they work from home long-term that they have been cut adrift. They lose their connection to the organisation, feel distant and a barrier to making contact. Fixed times for communication provide structure and adequate contact. Do not only plan team meetings, but also one-on-one discussions. And be accessible, even outside the scheduled times, for employees who have a question in the meantime.

Every employee is different from the next, and for some working from home means total disruption, for others it is just a marginal adjustment. Find out regularly how individuals employees are doing, both in their work and their private lives, and ask if you can help in any way.

We all tend to be quick to react to things that are not going well. But of course, if you don't see each other on a daily basis, a large part of non-verbal communication is lost, and it is important to verbalise our appreciation for each other. Things are going well? Say it, share successes and recognise that people did a lot of hard work to make it happen. Things are going badly? Do not focus on the errors themselves, or who is at fault, but above all on how things can improve in future.

This is really a hygiene factor, but an employee needs to make sure they have an ergonomically correct and safe workplace set up. Including when working remotely. Invest in this and make sure your employees are sitting comfortably. This not only avoids more absenteeism, it also give employees the feeling that you want to take good care of them.

Despite the fact that you don't meet up, there are still of course plenty of things you can organise to reinforce the team spirit and have a bit of fun. A Zoom cocktail, or: Zoom happy hour, digital pub quiz, online team outings, there is plenty available by now. And of course you could instigate a collective exercise challenge. This way you are improving both your team spirit and your team's health.