Remote Team Management 101: Virtual Leadership Skills You Should Have!
Feb 10, 2023 • 11 min read
The majority of global employees recognise the benefits of working remotely. That is why more and more workers are willing to leave the office and work in the comfort of their homes. Despite the advantages of having a remote workforce for companies, many managers still resist joining the bandwagon. The reason is they want to monitor their teams’ performance and effectively manage them. But that is not the case! Working with global remote teams can be effective as long as it is given the right support and effort to make adjustments.
Plenty of training and seminars will help you effectively manage your remote teams. DigiWorks provided this article to show you the common virtual leadership skills that you should acquire in order to manage your remote teams successfully. Alongside are the challenges of working with remote teams, how you can resolve them, and some effective leadership styles! If you are new to the remote work environment, currently working with remote teams, or aim to have a remote workforce for the long run, then this article is for you!
You’ll learn:
- What is the difference between leading traditional office workers and remote teams?
- Must-Have Leadership Skills!
- Let’s talk about leadership style!
- Challenges Leaders and Possible Solutions!
Ready to build your remote team?
Use the DigiWorks platform to hire, manage, and pay remote talent from all over the world.
What is the difference between leading traditional office workers and remote teams?
The main difference between traditional leadership and virtual leadership is communication. While you can physically interact with and monitor your office workers, remote teams work best with digital communication. Therefore, the management and support you can give to your remote teams are limited to the screen with the help of software or communication tools. That is also one of the main problems with working with remote employees, everything is limited virtually. However, there is nothing that good virtual leaders cannot do, as long as they can embrace the changes and adapt to the new setting. Building trust, setting up effective communication, and having a solid support system are just some of the steps that leaders should take!
Plus, a traditional office offers the advantage of working with employees of the exact location and timezone. That might not be the case with remote teams! You would most likely be going to hire global remote teams—in the case of DigiWorks, with employees across emerging countries who work in different time zones and locations. Additionally, they also have diverse cultural backgrounds that will push you to make certain adjustments to your company’s shared values.
Must-Have Leadership Skills!
1. Effective Communication Skills
Communication skills deserve to be on the top spot as it is the main factor that every leader should consider when working with remote teams! Communicating with your employees will be a lot different from an in-office workplace. You might find some difficulties interacting with your employees during the initial transitions, but you can work efficiently once you get the hang of it!
There are different ways to communicate with your remote teams, the first one is synchronous. This way of communication focuses more on phone calls, virtual meetings, and video conferencing. That will allow you to communicate with your teams in a real-time environment, which is essential when you have global remote employees.
You might think that it is challenging to organise synchronous communication, but there are plenty of ways to do it effectively! Of course, the key factor is preparation. To ensure that everything will go on smoothly and efficiently, it is essential to plan ahead and make sure that everything is in line. Additionally, preparing all the materials, topics to be discussed, and needed information is important.
Just remember that synchronous communication should not be held all the time. That can be done occasionally or when something important comes up. Perhaps, if your team is working on a big project or needs to develop future plans, then it is best to do it synchronously. That is also an effective method for occasional check-ins and organising fun events for your employees to enjoy.
Another way to interact with your remote teams is through asynchronous communication. If you don’t need to hold virtual meetings and want your team to focus on their project or tasks, communicating asynchronously is the best option. This type of communication often revolves around emails and messages through Slack or other preferred tools. You can also send voice recordings or videos for better communication. To make this type of communication effective, sending a clear and concise message is essential. Make sure that all information is stated in your email and avoid including context that might not be as helpful to avoid confusion. You can also attach some emojis to set the tone of the message, as miscommunication might sometimes occur. Also, remember that not everyone can easily give feedback since you are working with a global team with different work hours.
2. Establish Expectations
Setting clear and realistic expectations is essential when managing remote teams, especially with new hires. Some employees have no idea or feel confused about what tasks they should prioritise or focus on if you don’t state it beforehand. They might ask you for clarification only on the next check-in since they probably don’t know how to ask you—ensuring that you gave detailed instructions and clear expectations will avoid time wasted and miscommunication.
Virtual leaders should write their expectations before giving the tasks to their employees. They can include the deadline, include important notes, and measure the importance if possible to know which one needs further attention. That will allow employees to manage their schedules better and develop a daily to-do list. If possible, do regular check-ins to ensure that all their questions are entertained.
3. Intercultural Competence
One of the benefits of hiring an international team is you can work with individuals with different cultures, unique abilities, and distinct experiences. Perhaps you are working with a client speaking a foreign language, there is a possibility that you have an employee who can help you communicate with them better. And with the world as your talent pool, you can always guarantee that you are hiring the best one!
As their leader, it is your responsibility to recognise the cultural differences and ensure that they are valued regardless of their culture. You can use this opportunity to bring up non-work related topics and discuss and celebrate their unique backgrounds. It will be easier for your remote teams to get along well if they can learn things about each other.
4. Excellent Time-Management
As a leader, it is expected that you will work on multiple projects and collaborate with different employees every day. That is why sorting out your schedule and ensuring that everything you need to do is aligned will make you an effective leader. The reason for this is that you can ensure that you did not miss anything and have been given enough time to do specific tasks. Additionally, you are working with people who have different time zones. So, making sure that you are not hovering over their personal time is also one of the things that you should consider when establishing your work schedule.
5. Building professional relationship
A better way to make communication much smoother within your team is to build a solid professional relationship. Employees do their best to impress you, so expressing your interest not just in their work but also in them will make them feel appreciated. Instead of directly asking for an update about a project, why not start a conversation asking about them first? It will be much easier for employees to open up to you if they know that you are a good listener and understanding.
How can you build a good relationship with your team? Start by giving honest and positive feedback to your employees. Compliment their work and help them improve. Don’t be afraid to share some negative feedback, as long as you will share it constructively. Employees would appreciate it if you were willing to help them improve rather than just giving praises and casually doing the work yourself.
Having a strong professional relationship should just be between you and your employee. Your whole team should be able to collaborate well, and community building should be led by you! Interacting virtually is challenging for employees, but making small efforts for team-building activities that you can do online is the best way to make friends with coworkers successfully. Allow your employees to get to know each other and communicate, even with non-work related topics. You can organise some ice breakers from time to time or make an event where everyone can freely chit chat. There are plenty of things to know about a coworker who lives on the other side of the world, so let your employees communicate with each other outside work.
Let’s talk about leadership style!
There are many ways on how you want your remote team members to view you, based on how you manage them. You can be someone who motivates them, guide them, or coach them. Some leaders prefer to bring positivity to the room and help employees have a brighter vision. They are always there to help visualise projects and ensure that their team members have a positive outlook on their work. They always encourage their employees to give their best by providing motivational quotes or empowering words.
On the other hand, some leaders serve as the team’s support function. They are always ready to answer questions and guide their employees when working on specific projects. If their team member is losing creativity, they support them by giving some creative ideas to improve their work. Additionally, they provide a high degree of trust and support to their team members and always ensure that they always have a leader to lean on if they need assistance.
Challenges Leaders and Possible Solutions!
1. Exhaustions
As a leader, it is indeed exhausting to manage your team all day and work with multiple tasks simultaneously. You are not physically tired but also emotionally and mentally drained after doing all the support and guidance for the whole day. Additionally, some personal matters would most probably add to the stress that team leaders are feeling. If you feel like you are too tired, take time to reflect on the things you neglect doing for yourself. Have you properly taken care of yourself? Did you eat your meals on time? Did you take your breaks wisely? It is important to prioritise your overall well-being, even if your responsibility is to look out for others. If you feel too tired, pause for a couple of minutes and ensure to take your time off of work doing things to keep you relaxed.
2. Limited communication
As a team leader, you probably long for face-to-face meetings to manage your team effectively. It is easier to understand your employees if you can see their facial expressions, movements, and gestures. However, working remotely means you cannot organise meetings all the time and have to work asynchronously too. An excellent virtual team leader takes full advantage of any communication strategy—synchronous or asynchronous. Take every chance to understand your team and learn things about them. Interaction might be difficult, but having open communication will make things a lot easier for you.
3. Working with individuals from different time zones
It must be hard when you always have to consider your employees’ timezone. You wouldn’t want to overstep their personal life, but you also don’t want to miss checking in. But, effective utilisation of project management tools is the best way to keep track of everyone’s activity. You wouldn’t have difficulty following up on a project with an employee as long as you have the proper tools and effectively communicate with them.
Ready to build your remote team?
Use the DigiWorks platform to hire, manage, and pay remote talent from all over the world.
Conclusion
DigiWorks understands that being a virtual leader is no joke! It comes with many obligations and responsibilities that can be exhausting at times. But hopefully, this article will help you find a better strategy to make the most out of your remote teams and become an effective team leader. Always remember that building trust and creating ways for accessible communication is the main ingredient to being the best virtual leader. Trust the process, provide the necessities, and always listen to your team, and you will surely ace it!
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About DigiWorks
DigiWorks is an easy-to-use platform that helps small businesses and start ups hire amazing remote talent from around the world. DigiWorks offers a way for you to hire, manage and pay people from all countries. If you find an amazing virtual assistant from Philippines, a content writer from Nigeria, or operations manager from South Africa – manage and pay your entire team from one platform with no hassle.
If you’re looking for a more affordable and sustainable option you might consider making use of a hiring platform like DigiWorks. Virtual assistant companies or platforms like DigiWorks are amazing as they not only match you with pre-vetted and assessed remote workers that can take care of all your business needs but they will also handle all onboarding and payroll needs as well.