#favouritemodel No.11 – Virtual leadership

Virtual, remote, distance leadership – no matter what you call it, it is always about leadership, about leadership as a function and a shared thought model. It’s about the interaction with people, not about the manager.

Even in face-to-face contexts, questions such as “How do we work together in a good, motivated, meaningful, goal-oriented and value-adding way?” are a daily challenge for managers and teams. The virtual context adds to this challenge with the fact that we have far fewer, if any, chance encounters and far fewer opportunities for interaction.

Accordingly, it is absolutely crucial in a virtual context to consciously use the few interactions that do occur and, even more importantly, to consciously bring them about and shape them.

Specifically, virtual leadership is about consciously shaping the framework for successful (collaborative) work and using the possibilities of virtual interaction for this purpose. When do we communicate asynchronously and exclusively via email, when do we communicate asynchronously and inclusively via chat function in a collaboration environment, which topics are tackled in video conferences, how do we create an “agenda-free” exchange with each other and how do we ensure that all emotional states in the team are given their space and no one is left behind in virtual nirvana or the home office. Along with the much-vaunted efficiency of virtual working, the human need for closeness, contact and relationships must also be brought into balance and trust must be established and maintained as the basis for successful team performance through virtual interactions.

There are many options for shaping virtual leadership and, as always, there is no silver bullet. It remains crucial to actively and consciously shape leadership and to constantly ask yourself and the team what we need in order to take the next step as a team in the best possible way. If I see leadership as a function in my team that should ultimately function independently of me as a manager, then the key question in a virtual context is: how can leadership remain effective when we are not in virtual meetings? How do we ensure that we have common premises and make decisions according to transparent principles so that they are reproducible for everyone?

With this understanding of virtual leadership, I organize my day-to-day management in such a way that we have as many interactions as possible in the team that always contribute to our relationship work and explicitly deal with our different emotional sensitivities – the more, the more transparent, the more explicit, the more diverse relationship building becomes possible. So, what messages are you sending out today to make your contribution to relationship work?

How does my #favoritemodel help you?

Your everyday life in virtual leadership could include the following elements:

In the morning, briefly post for your team how you are doing, what’s on your mind and how you can be reached today so that it’s transparent what you’re doing and the team is encouraged to communicate as well.
If you have free time, call the very team member you haven’t spoken to alone for a long time and simply say: How are you? I just want to talk to you again…
Make sure that you can regularly spend time together as a team. Clarify when the best time for this is and maintain this exchange without making it a compulsion.
If team members disappear, remain quiet or are not virtually visible, then contact these team members promptly, ask questions and at the same time make it clear how important joint interaction is for the entire team.
Think very consciously about what opportunities you have and use to convey sufficient appreciation virtually and generate pride in the joint achievement. Use these opportunities more frequently than is usual in a face-to-face culture.
Regularly provide a deeper insight into your thoughts, feelings and decisions by keeping a blog, posting videos or providing access to what moves you, at least internally and perhaps also externally, in other ways.
Regularly clarify with your
Team, what exactly you still need in your virtual interactions to maintain trust and closeness at a distance.

Author

Marc Chmielewski
Managing Director