If you, as a leader, had three wishes to improve your online leadership skills, what would you choose? A wise choice is made by those who know which competencies have emerged as promising in the past year. In our management consulting firm, we have inspired, trained, and coached thousands of participants virtually and compiled our best practices for you, so that your wishes can easily become reality. We reveal the top 3, so that you can excel as a remote leader and not end up in a dead-end. Leaders and employees who master these three success factors together were able to score points, achieve their set goals, and expand and strengthen their collaboration despite the crisis.
1) Virtual Expectation Management - Is it clear what you want?
"My people just don't do what I want them to do." "The results of my employee do not align with my desired goals." These are sentences we have often heard from leaders in many online peer group coaching sessions in recent months. In response, we asked a question: Do your employees know exactly - even in this special situation within virtual collaboration - what you want from them? 'You don't get what you want, if you don't say what you want' is the motto here. How is your virtual expectation management? Have you clearly communicated what you want and in what quality? Are you delegating correctly? Are goals clearly set for everyone?
Clear Communication
Goals are an important tool in any form of leadership to make it clear to all participants and contributors what it's all about. The following questions have proven useful when it comes to the goals of your own team: • Are all goals measurable? • Have you set binding deadlines? • Is it clearly defined who is responsible for what? • Have you ensured that everyone understands what is at stake and what each contributes to the team's success? Have you taken into account the special context of virtual collaboration in your goals? Communication is already a big topic when people are present, but exclusively virtually, misunderstandings and misinterpretations accumulate. When you don't meet your employees in person and therefore hardly perceive physical signals, it is even more important to communicate clearly and ensure understanding. Therefore, our recommendation is: Turn on the camera, so that you can see - even if only partially - how the other person reacts. Have the other person briefly summarize what was said in their own words, not to harass them, but to make sure they have understood you correctly. A respectful and benevolent attitude will help you strive for effective communication.
2) Lost in Home Office - Avoid Isolation!
"How can I maintain the connection with my employees during the Corona crisis?" "How can I strengthen team spirit even though we don't see each other?" "What can I do to prevent isolation in the home office?" We have often discussed such or similar questions, as many employees find it difficult to identify with the virtual team. Genuine encounters are missing. Isolation in the home office exacerbates this factor. However, a sense of connection and identification with the team are important success factors for virtual collaboration. It is crucial to consider the respective needs of the employees. But how can this be achieved over a distance? What attitude is useful and helpful in this regard? Let's put ourselves in the shoes of a customer who, for example, wants to buy a new car. In order for him to ultimately decide on the purchase, it is important to understand his expectations and needs in order to fulfill them. Perhaps the new car should be family-friendly with plenty of space and a large trunk. If the seller does not focus on these needs in his advice, the customer will be disappointed and walk away. What we have done in this example is to change perspectives and take on the attitude of a customer. This is also the switch to the new remote leadership: Employees are customers. Leadership thus becomes a genuine service and takes place on an equal footing.
Leadership as a Service
In the future, we will not only write emails to customers particularly nicely and courteously, but also to our own employees, because: They are your customers! Without your team, you will not be successful! A successful service provider always keeps their customers in mind. It's not about your own preferences, but about how your employees want to be treated. Many leaders think that what is good for them is also good for their people. In psychology, this is called Egocentric Bias. How we see things feels completely normal and self-evident to us. However, this can clash with a large part of other people who do not think the same way as we do. If you are more of a factual type who primarily focuses on numbers, data, and facts, then with this focus, you will fail with an employee who is more relationship- and closeness-oriented. Do you like to write short, concise emails? Perhaps Mrs. A loves that, but maybe Mr. B would prefer a phone call. Which tools, which communication style does each employee prefer? Email, chat, phone, web meeting, or something else? Do you know that? How can you find out the differences and needs of your employees? It's quite simple: Ask them. Ask open-ended questions that allow for more than a yes or no answer. And then, very important: Be silent and listen carefully to what your employees answer. Also here: Turn on the camera, so that you can perceive the reactions, facial expressions, and gestures of your employees.
3) Trust
"I don't know what my people are doing all day." "How can I trust my employees more?" "How can I build trust despite the distance?" These questions reached us regarding trust. But what is trust anyway? First and foremost, trust is a subjective attribution, a special quality in the relationship between people that leads to being willing to engage with the other person and rely on them. Trust is a feeling that we humans urgently need. We strive for social belonging. However, we only feel this in a relationship or atmosphere where we can open up to others trustingly. Constructive collaboration does not work in an atmosphere of mistrust. Without trust, cooperation cannot function. Whether in the family, among friends, acquaintances, and colleagues, in the team, or in the relationship between superiors and employees: Trust is the emotional foundation that social relationships need to thrive. Trust also has a crucial advantage. It accelerates cooperation. Imagine having to verify everything spoken and agreed upon for your security, document it in writing, and archive it in folders, whether on paper or in bytes on the computer. How time-consuming would that be! Therefore, the motto is:
Control is good, trust is better
Approaching others with a trust advance usually pays off. The vast majority of employees will perceive this as appreciation and will strive to live up to that trust advance. This means more motivation, more engagement, and better results. Trust advance is an investment in a high-performance culture. Of course, there may and will always be some who take advantage of it, but should you "punish" the others with a trust reservation because of that? The answer is a clear no! As a distance leader, you have little or perhaps no opportunity to look over your employees' shoulders. You have no choice but to assume that everyone is doing their job. Invest heavily in trusting your team and strengthening their sense of responsibility. Experience the Online Impulse Series with Susanne Nickel and Gunhard Keil on February 23, 2021 at 11:00 a.m. at Speakers Excellence. Register here The book by the two top speakers on the topic "Leading at a Distance" has now been released. Available here
