admin Locating employees with prime time management skills, excellent focus, and unwavering commitment to making a telecommuting arrangement succeed is vital to remote work. But, companies require remote team leaders capable of adapting their methodology to the challenge of leading an off-site staff to reap maximum benefit.
“Managers of remote employees need the same skill set as an onsite manager,” says Leigh Steere, co-founder of Managing People Better, LLC. “The execution of those skills just looks a little different when not working face-to-face with the people who report to you.”
These four traits will help remote leaders to guide teams to stellar performance:
1. Communication
Effective communication is something required and mandatory for all business. Workers know the expectations and how to achieve them if provided with clear guidelines, deadlines, and feedback.
Out of sight never means out of mind is the assurance of remote leaders. They monitor progress and offer support by regularly checking in with telecommuters. Staff members know that their manager would take the time to clarify or admit to needing assistance rather than ending up with a problem down the line.
Realizing the importance of conversation, not just instruction is also a quality of good remote team leader. “Master the art of asking and you will enrich your understanding of employees, the challenges they face, and their ideas for meeting those challenges. Workers will recognize your concern about what they have to say, and that will lead to higher employee engagement and stronger business results.” Said Peter Friedes, a fellow co-founder of Managing People Better, LLC.
2. Virtuous Listener
Video conferencing though can help, remote managers need to be especially adept at “listening between the lines.” The ab to sense a telecommuter’s frustration or confusion significantly helps toward righting the ship or keeping the worker engaged.
A good first step for effective communication is to avoid multitasking. A manager can give the remote worker undivided attention with electronics set aside.
3. Higher Observation
Managers often get a sense of morale, employee interaction, and other factors that influence engagement and productivity by walking through the office. This same keen perception is required by Leaders of off-site teams.
“Managers of remote workers sometimes have their hands ‘too far off the wheel’ to see performance problems early,” Steere says. “If an employee is not producing quality and timely deliverables, or if an employee is alienating co-worker through abrasive communication, the manager needs to confront the performance issue immediately—not after six months or a year of damage and co-worker complaints.”
The use of a variety of communication tools can help remote managers observe employees as individuals and as a team. For instance, a one-on-one chat may alert them to a personal problem and a conference call may offer insight into group dynamics.
4. Centralize Goals
Finally, the result is something that all managers want. Their ability to coordinate various people and factors to achieve desired outcomes determines their own carrier success.
But, as Steere notes, punch clock is not the measure of a remote team “Productivity and value are measured by results delivered. Period.”
Remote managers, thus are obliged to be thinkers of big-picture. Their charges know how to meet expectations when clear criteria including measurable deliverables are put forth. And in this way, they become trusted leaders capable of bringing out the best, instead of being annoying micromanagers.
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