The issue of remote leadership is not new, but has never been so topical. Last year, the pandemic forced (and continues to force) millions into a giant work-from-home experiment which we’ve never seen before. Some hate it, while others hope it will be permanent, seeing more pluses than minuses.
We hear a lot about how teams are adapting to remote work, but hardly a thought for the leaders. Positively, leaders overall seem to be making a good impression on employees. One recent British study looked at the impact of COVID-19 on work-lives and found almost three-quarters of employees felt well-supported by their manager, with no drop in the quality of leadership during lockdown periods. In fact, more at-home workers than office-based workers said their boss was good at checking in on their health and well-being.
However, leaders themselves seem to be less confident in their performance. In the summer of 2020, Harvard Business Review published the results of a multi-country survey that looked at the challenges leaders faced when managing remote teams. Forty percent of respondents expressed low self-confidence in their ability to manage workers remotely. A similar number said they lacked the confidence to influence remote workers to do their job well.
Faced with a new remote-work reality, many leaders are still finding their bearings. What started out as “How can we keep our workers safe and relatively productive while riding out the crisis?” has turned into a series of much bigger questions:
● What leadership techniques worked well in the office but now have little impact in the virtual world?
● What should a great leader do if remote work becomes a permanent situation?
● Am I helping my team or holding them back?
What’s different about remote teams?
Leaders of all stripes often find themselves grappling with a major dilemma — on the one hand, the need to direct and control the work carried out by the teams to maintain productivity; on the other hand, the necessity to just step back and trust others to do their job. As technology makes everyone available and accessible in seconds, it’s easy to think the ‘control dilemma’ is more or less the same, regardless of whether your team is in-person or remote.
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