By Catherine Quinn
The last five years have whiplashed from panic about our ability to work fully remotely, to amazement that we can be productive while remote, to return to office orders, to a mixed response to employee demands to maintain remote flexibility. While employee engagement did drop slightly – two percentage points – in 2020, it began to rebound the following year, prior to most return to office requirements. It’s reasonable, therefore, to assume that this drop was driven more by external environmental factors than the nature of remote work. Further, more recent studies demonstrate that flexible workplace policies can increase engagement, including connection with company values and with a direct manager. And yet, a 2024 survey shows 70% of managers saying that in-person management is easier than remote.
As a fully remote employee managing hybrid teams two or three hours ahead of my Pacific Coast self, I think about these contradictions constantly. Having now managed teams both in person and remotely, my experience is that one isn’t harder than the other, but each requires different tactics to achieve the same objectives. I will own: the first few months of managing remotely was difficult – but only insomuch as I didn’t understand all the tactics yet.
So, what does effective remote leadership look like? This is how I approach five commonly cited challenges of remote leadership.
#1 Team Building.
Without lunches, post-work social activities, or even coffee breaks, it can feel challenging to form the authentic, personal connections that are critical for team engagement. In a remote space, this requires more intentionality. That might look like carving out social time at the beginning of most team stand ups, encouraging your team to actually ‘chat’ in a team-wide chat (bring on the gifs and doggo pictures), and periodic introspective team building session to discuss whether our working style is effective.
#2 Task Management.
In our modern knowledge and service economy, physically seeing people work has no bearing on the quality of the output. At the end of the day, if I set a task and a deadline, I expect a quality output by that deadline. That’s true regardless of whether I was in the same room as the person executing the task. If there’s a problem with quality or timeliness, then we unpack it to understand the why – just like we would in person. The flip side of this is understanding availability when there is work to be tasked out. With remote and hybrid work, there is typically additional flexibility around specific working hours. Leveraging a shared calendar or the like can create transparency around when you can expect your teammates ‘in’ the office; standard project management tools can track workload per person. That’s enough information to identify when someone may be disengaged or otherwise not adhering to expectations, and may need coaching.
#3 Coaching.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy represented a common perspective when he stated in an HBR interview that it’s easier to pull someone aside after a meeting for a coaching moment if you’re in person. He’s correct that feedback should be delivered in the moment – or shortly thereafter, in the case of a meeting when the feedback is best shared privately. But, the physical proximity is irrelevant. It’s just a matter of whether you, the team lead, say “hey, do you have a second to debrief?” verbally and find a room or in writing and jump on a video call. This principle works for most things that you ‘can’t’ do remotely – ask yourself, why not? With phones, messaging tools, collaborative files, shared whiteboards, and other technologies, there are very few tasks you can’t recreate remotely.
#4 Managing Attention.
One thing that ‘can’t’ be done remotely is managing attention in a meeting. Surely, there’s no way to ensure that everyone in a meeting is actively engaged when you’re not in the same room, right? And yet, even in person, a facilitator will lead off with “laptops and phones away, please, we really need everyone engaged in this conversation” when needed. We can set the same norms on a virtual call. The only difference is that the laptop stays, but perhaps notifications turn off. But how to tell if someone isn’t engaged, especially in a cameras off situation? Are they participating as much as expected? No? Ask for their input directly. The response quality will demonstrate whether they’re engaged – the same way it would if someone was woolgathering during an in-person session.
#5 Visibility.
Often, it’s said that leaders must be visible, partially to earn the respect of others and partially to be remembered for additional development opportunities. While physically being present in the office may be an easy way to achieve visibility, it’s not required. Set up recurring one-on-ones with peers and leaders, speak up on All Hands calls, send that unsolicited idea to your boss, find a sponsor, and say yes when new opportunities that align with your interests come up. Make your visibility about what and how you’re doing, not your physical presence.
Bonus #6: Honest Triaging of In-Person versus Remote Activities.
While most aspects of work and leading teams can be recreated virtually, there are still some things best done in person. The most important is reenergizing relationships. While relationships can be maintained virtually, we’ve all felt that sheepish ‘realization’ that “oh right, they’re a real person” when we see coworkers in person for the first time in months – or longer. This humanization doesn’t take long and it doesn’t need to happen often – but it does need to include time for actual human connection, not just tasks that could be done remotely. This is critical to ensuring that those relationships stay relational, not transactional. This helps us maintain the empathy necessary for teams to stay engaged and collaborative, especially in the face of unusually stressful periods at work.
All said: yes, remote leadership is hard. But so is in person leadership. Most of the challenges are the same – just with different solutions.
