Eight questions to ask yourself when leading remotely

We are living in unprecedented times. Our usual ways of operating have been dismantled and we’re all having to rapidly develop new approaches and adjust to them.

A lot of focus in the early days of our COVID-19 world has been on ensuring everyone has access to the technology and systems they need to operate effectively from home, setting up new policies and processes to enable safe and secure business continuity. Alongside this, we need to ensure that our people are looked after – that we are supporting and enabling them to do their best work in difficult circumstances, if you are a leader then this is your job.

This requires you to do things differently. You need to be far more conscious about your leadership role and much more proactive. You need to lead with purpose. So, over the coming days and weeks, we’re going to provide you with tips and hints for leading in this new reality. We will give you a playbook of practical guides to help you:

• Engage and motivate your team
• Run successful 1-2-1’s virtually
• Help your team stay calm and focused during times of crisis
• On-board new starters remotely
• Support your team to manage challenging domestic situations alongside work
• Harness creativity and innovation in ways that will help you when current restrictions are removed
• Encourage collaboration and team performance

Throughout the series, we will be encouraging you to use this time to be the best leader you can be – and to be the leader that your teams need you to be. The framework we will be using, is the five habits of leaders as ‘liberators of talent’.

These five habits are:

1. Know your team
2. Catalyst for growth
3. Feedback and feedforward
4. Look to the future
5. Work in partnership

To find out more about these five habits, you can listen to our recent Leadership Insights podcast. Our overall goal is to help everyone to be at their personal best.

Each of the practical guides will be related to at least one of the habits. As you work through these, you will be developing your leadership skills, knowledge and behaviours – and this will help you throughout the rest of your leadership career.

Suddenly working remotely? Eight questions leaders should ask themselves

The first of the habits is to ‘know your team’. This is a great place for you to begin straight away and will be essential as a foundation for all the other practical guides to come. As a start, think about your direct reports and try to answer these eight questions:

1. How much experience do they have of working from home?
2. How clear are they on their work priorities?
3. How do they generally respond to change and uncertainty?
4. What is their domestic situation and what challenges could this bring?
5. What do you think this person will be most worried about right now?
6. What do you think this person will be most excited about right now?
7. To what extent do you feel able to empower and trust them to get on with things?
8. How can you help bring out the best in this person?

If you don’t know the answers to these questions, then it’s worth having a conversation with each of your team members to find out.

• Leading in the new reality – How to engage and motivate your team
• Leading in the new reality – How to run successful 1-2-1’s virtually
• How to lead from afar
• Is it possible to unite a remote workforce?
• Eight ways to become a more compassionate leader
• Become more mindful, inside and outside of work

Author

Dr Maggi Evans

Chartered Occupational Psychologist, Consultant and Coach, Mosaic Consulting

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Maggi is an experienced consultant and coach with international experience across a wide range of sectors including professional services, financial services, retail and FMCG.  She is a Chartered Occupational Psychologist and combines research and practice to develop practical solutions to drive business improvement.

Maggi has been a consultant for over 20 years, specialising in talent strategy and talent development.  She has a reputation as an insightful consultant, helping clients to reduce the ‘noise’ around an issue so they can focus and act on key issues which will make a difference.  Maggi is on a mission to help organisations, leaders and individuals to liberate talent.  Her first book ‘From Talent Management to Talent Liberation’ has recently been published.