Up to some months ago most companies’ daily reality was about physically
working in an office. In such “physical” work environments, even more with the
so popular open space offices layouts, employees were visible to others during the
most part of the working day. This made them very much aware that their
behaviours and attitudes could always be possibly observed or evaluated.
Depending on the companies’ cultures and rules you could find offices where
employees spent more time pretending that they were working rather than doing
so.
In that aspect working remotely changes the rules and is much more
effective: you stop losing time and
energy in pretending.
Nevertheless, when working remotely, even if you can control how and when
you are visible to others, you cannot
hide anymore. When having meetings, you cannot compensate your possible
lack of competence or engagement with your communication and social
skills.
In the past employees could eventually hide and still be credible. It is
not possible anymore.
Being involved is not enough. You must be engaged, active and performing.
What is the consequence for leaders?
Ambiguity is no longer possible. Working remotely means you need to be much
more precise and clearer about information, assignments and support. You cannot
take anything for granted. You need to make sure people are aligned and
committed. Communication and proactivity
are key.
The other challenge is to remotely keep the team together. How can you do
that?
You need to create spaces for people to interact as a team and one to
one…but always keeping momentum,
avoiding everlasting virtual meetings that kill the energy and the
connection.
Finally, the main difficulty leaders are facing today is managing fear and
uncertainty. The confinement restrictions were lived very differently by each
one of your collaborators and the levels
of stress and insecurity can be very different but also very high for everyone.
We are in the middle of a profound crisis in which we will need to invent
new ways of connecting with our teams, but also face and manage the way we confront
and handle ourselves these situations. More than ever our ability to have empathy, be present, close and
supportive with our team members, our capacity to really listen and
understand where they are, and the way we will support them will be key to our team’s
future successes.
How do you manage this yourself?
