When I took on my first leadership role, my team were there with me. I looked them in the eye everyday and we got to know each other (regularly) in the pub! It was a work hard, play hard environment and we were in each other’s pockets. If only life was as simple now.
Increasingly teams are remote – if not all of the team, at least some of them. So leading effectively from a distance is critical to business success. But leading remotely often takes a greater level of skill and sophistication than leading the people who we sit with every day. We have to find ways to engage with them; inspire them and most importantly get results down a telephone and the internet.
When I first had to lead someone down a telephone I used to get frustrated. Whenever she called I’d roll my eyes as it felt as though this was someone who was taking up my valuable time when in reality I needed to be focusing on delivering results. It also felt as though she did a disproportionate amount of complaining – and so she became the bane of my life! When I look back I realise that this was someone who was crying out for the personal touch – something that comes much more naturally when you sit with a person every day.
Some years and a lot more experience later, I now find myself training other people to lead in all sorts of different situations. As a learning and development specialist I’ve used many of my own leadership experiences to formulate a very personal approach to leadership. Personal doesn’t mean soft. It just means focusing on the individual; taking the time to understand what motivates and drives them; and taking the time to find out what their hopes, fears, challenges and successes are – even if it is down the telephone.
I’ve recently been working with a company who have people dotted all around the world. They face the additional challenge of different cultures and time zones, which means that they must be even more flexible in their approach to leading. Without exception they all recognised that they tended to ignore the people who were remote, focusing instead on the people who were around them. And funnily enough it was these remote relationships where most problems were occurring.
In another example, one leader always asked his remote workers to travel to the Head Office where he was based for meetings. He suddenly realised that by making the effort to go to them sometimes, it would make a strong statement of ‘you are important’. Sure enough, the relationships have already improved.
There is no substitute for spending time with someone. However it isn’t always possible as much as we’d like. But that doesn’t mean we can’t build relationships with people that are based on trust, openness, honesty and respect. It’s becoming easier and easier to have relationships with people that are based on remote communication. Facebook, Twitter, blogging – all of these innovations have made the world feel smaller and have opened people’s minds to building relationships over a distance.
But just because people are more accessible, it doesn’t mean that we can take relationships for granted. It still takes time and care. And I believe more and more that shared experiences which are emotionally engaging help leaders to lead effectively from a distance. After all if you’ve faced a real challenge together, you know more about the other person and how they respond under pressure. So the key to leading through remote communication is to make it less remote and more personal. Easy it’s not but if you put in the time you’ll reap the rewards….
Ruth Moody is Director of Learning and Development Company Farscape Development.
