A 3-Step Formula For You to Lead Your Remote Team With Confidence
There’s nothing quite like the feeling of empowerment and collaboration that comes from leading a team.
But what if your team members don’t work in the office next to you?
What if they’re remote workers or you lead a distributed team?
What if they are in another city, state, or country?
No matter the location of your employees, it’s critical to lead them successfully. Here are three ways to create alignment, empower your team members and ultimately, build better products and services.
- Mindset
- Tactics
- Tools
Let’s dive straight into them.
Your Mindset of leading a remote team
Working remotely is becoming the new normal in many companies.
It’s important to understand that leading a remote team requires a specific mindset.
But don’t worry, this is something that you can learn easily.
As soon as you have a remote team up and running, you will likely find that you need to adapt your management style during the first few months.
This is absolutely fine, nobody is born perfect.
The most important factor hereby is to understand that remote leadership is an ongoing process.
One of the most important mindset shifts is that you have to
Trust your team and let go
No one likes to have a big brother watching.
“How far are you on that assignment I gave you 3 minutes ago?”
Especially not in a remote setup.
To be a great leader, you have to understand that your team will do the work regardless of the location.
Make results count, not the hours your team is clocking in.
How can you achieve this?
Well, there are different approaches which we will look at next.
Different types of leading a remote team
There are 2 types of leaders: inspirational, or transformational.
The difference between the two is that inspirational leaders focus on the creative thinking aspects of a team and thereby helps them to perform well.
This can be by inviting industry experts for specific topics, or fostering communication with people outside the core team.
Transformational leaders focus on supporting the team navigate through big changes in the organization and thereby helps them to do great work.
These two style are not exclusive, meaning you can focus on one or the other.
You: “I understand, but what should I do now exactly?”
No worries, I got you.
Here is
Your One Tactic to successfully lead a remote team
Have you ever googled “Tactics to successfully lead a remote team” ?
Well, I did the work for you.
Here’s what you get
So what’s the right answer to the number of tactics?
7 ?
10 ?
99 ?
42 ?
Come closer, I’ll let you in on a secret:
Blindly following tactics lists will not get you anywhere
In my opinion there is only one effective tactic you have to follow.
Try things out, keep what’s working stop what’s not working
I’ve gathered the some of the important tools a remote team leader needs in the The Essential Guide to Remote Team Activities.
Here is the overview of the tools you need:
💡Video Conferencing software such as Skype or Zoom
💡Secure file-sharing platforms like Dropbox
💡Collaborative visual editors like Miro, or FigJam
If you want to dive deeper, here’s the complete guide The Essential Guide to Remote Team Activities
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, you should always be ready to actively lead your remote team.
You are the leader of your team and as such, everyone will look up to you whether they want to or not.
Even though a successful remote team is a difficult task, it’s also possible when you know how to lead them effectively.
As mentioned above in our article, there are a lot of tools that can be used by your particular team in order to make sure the tasks get done and deadlines are met.
Further Resources
- Slack - Navigating the new remote work reality
- Microsoft - The Next Great Disruption Is Hybrid Work — Are We Ready?
- Loom - Why Trust is the Key to Your Remote Work Strategy
Image Credit
Photo by Good Faces on Unsplash
Gif via GIPHY