As the world shifts to more hybrid and remote work options, leaders have to find new ways to engage team members who aren’t in the office every day. Connecting with and developing team members over video calls, messaging or emails can be a challenge, but it’s critical for their professional success and sense of belonging in your organization.

At Building Champions, we know you don’t have to be in the same room as your team to help them develop their full potential. You do, however, have to make an effort to engage, empower and support them. In this article, we’ll look at the key skills every virtual leader needs and four ways you can help your team succeed. 

Leadership Skills for Managing Remote Teams

In a virtual environment, leaders need to hone certain skills to help bring remote workers into the fold of your team and your organization. It’s key to foster a sense of belonging in these team members so that, even though they work from home, they know they’re part of something bigger.

The core competencies of any great leader are universally beneficial. To turn them into virtual leadership skills, however, you’ll need to make a few adjustments in how you practice them. 

• Communication skills – Effectively communicating in the office is hard enough, even more so with remote employees. Details and instructions can get lost in translation when you can’t pop into someone’s office for clarification, so virtual leaders need to be skilled communicators across multiple channels. This might be phone calls, emails, instant messages or video calls. It’s also key to always ask if an employee needs clarification and to make yourself available to answer questions as they arise.

• Build trust – Your team should know who you are and what you stand for. The key to a thriving remote team is building trusting relationships so everyone feels confident they have the support they need to succeed. Make sure your team knows they’re never an inconvenience or interruption. Your first job is to support them. If you can’t respond to their message or call right away, let them know you’ll respond as soon as you can. Welcome their questions, validate their ideas and affirm their value to help them develop confidence and establish trust. Above all, remember the four questions your leadership should answer for every team member to establish trust and empathy:

• Give the right kind of support – In an office setting, you can observe how team members interact with each other, their body language and their personal working style to get to know their personalities and the type of feedback they respond to best. This is much more difficult in a remote setting because you only see your team members for a short period of time. In a virtual work environment, team leaders need to ask their remote employees for this information. Find out what kind of managers they’ve worked best with in the past and how they like to receive feedback so you can give them what they need moving forward.

• Build a Coaching Culture – Even fully remote teams have a company culture. You want to ensure your company’s values and mission are carried over to your remote team members and empower them to keep improving themselves for the good of the organization. A great way to do this is by creating a Coaching Culture. Lead with empathy and prioritize employee development so each team member can see that you know their goals, you’re rooting for their success, you can help them grow and you’ll do it consistently.  

How to Implement Your Skills

With these skills in mind, it’s time to tackle some of the practical struggles of leading a remote team. Here are four ways you can implement your skills in the virtual world to help your team. 

1. Choose Appropriate Channels

Effective communication is perhaps the most important virtual leadership skill. It can be tough to get your message across via online channels, but it’s the primary way you’ll connect with your remote workers. 

The key to clear virtual communication is choosing the appropriate channel for your message. You don’t want to overwhelm in an instant message, but you also don’t want to get someone on Zoom for just one question.

Let’s look at the four main types of remote communication and what types of communication they are best suited for.

• Video calls are great if you have a lot to discuss or need the personal touch of being face-to-face. They’re a good option if you need clarification on a written message. Keep in mind—video calls don’t have to be a formal meeting. You can also use them for quick connections during the day if an employee needs to talk through something.

• Email is helpful if you need to outline lots of details or convey multiple pieces of information. This is also the preferred means of communication if you or your team member will need to access the conversation later or share it with another team. 

• Phone calls are good for quick messages or quick clarifications while you’re on the go. Although most people use video calls in remote work environments, phone calls are still useful if someone is unavailable or away from their desk. 

• Messaging platforms give your team a way to communicate during the day about projects, tasks and everything in between. It’s a way for you and them to interact with each other and exchange quick updates. Common platforms include Google Hangouts, Slack, and GroupMe.

2. Schedule One-on-One Meetings

As a team leader, the best way to build trust is to let your team get to know you. And what better setting than in a regular one-on-one? 

Recurring one-on-one virtual meetings are an easy way to check in with remote employees, helping them identify growth areas and acknowledging their progress. This is when you can really tap into someone’s personal and professional goals and show them you care about their success.

Although this time should be used for whatever the team member needs, it often helps to have some sort of structure to guide the conversation when they have no particular concerns. You might choose to ask them the same questions each week, get feedback on what could be improved or even have them rate their experience from 1-10. 

This information all helps you gauge if an employee feels adequately engaged and supported in their role. Plus, it’s in a setting where you can ask follow-up questions, gain clarification and offer suggestions on how they can improve and problem-solve on their own.

3. Set Clear Expectations and Goals

Leadership roles in a remote environment function a bit differently than in the office. When you have your entire team outside your door, it’s easy to monitor their progress and regularly remind them of team and organizational goals. When you’re managing a remote team, however, this is more difficult.

The key to running a successful virtual team is to set clear expectations and goals, and ideally, have them down in writing somewhere everyone can reference them. It’s your job to make sure everyone is staying on track and knows how their part contributes to the whole. 

One way to do this is by using project management tools. In these platforms, you can assign specific tasks to team members and add deadlines. This helps them to keep track of exactly what you expect them to accomplish through their role as well as the timeline it needs to happen in. 

For personal and professional goals, it can help to regularly review how each team member is performing and what they could improve on. In the traditional workplace, annual performance reviews were common. In the workplace of the future, remote team members will likely need more frequent feedback, such as quarterly reviews, to keep them on track and continue their leadership development.

4. Provide Opportunities to Build Relationships

The final tip for creating an effective virtual leadership style is to bring your company culture through the screen. A sense of belonging is a powerful connection in employees to their workplace, and to achieve it, you need to build relationships.

Encourage team members to meet with each other and their leadership team for coffee chats or “Happy Hours” on video conferences. This gives everyone an opportunity to get to know each other outside of their professional roles and create real friendships.

Another important way to build relationships in your remote team is to have everyone meet in person. Whether it’s a company retreat or bringing your remote employees into the office for a visit, allowing everyone to be in the same room is what really brings teams together. This helps people see and feel that they’re part of something bigger than their home office.

Remote Teams Need Great Leaders

The changes the pandemic brought to working styles and locations also changed the way we lead our teams. Even if you don’t see your team members in person every day, they still have the same needs as every other employee you serve. 

Virtual leaders need to be skilled communicators, build trusting relationships, support their team members’ professional growth and convey their company culture, all through a computer screen. At Building Champions, we know the best way to accomplish this is by becoming a Coaching Leader. 

Schedule a call today to see how we can help you become a Coaching Leader who expertly supports and develops your team.