Elevate Your Leadership: Mastering the Art of Managing Remote Teams

Remote work has been on the rise since the days of the pandemic. While many businesses have introduced return-to-office policies in the years since, even more are making remote work the new normal. In the United States, around 20% of employees are working remotely, while around 71% of US employers have now adopted the hybrid business model. These rapid changes in the world of work have made the subjects of managing remote teams and hybrid work management more pertinent than ever.

While remote work brings countless benefits to businesses and employees alike, it’s only really successful under the right leadership. Below, we’ll explore the unique obstacles faced by remote teams, spotlight the skills a good remote manager needs to possess, and investigate best practices for successfully managing remote teams today.

Understanding the Unique Challenges of Remote Teams

There are many challenges of remote work. The nature of the remote working model causes a host of communication difficulties. With direct management and overseeing of day-to-day activities, even the simplest of instructions can become lost in translation when relegated to email alone. When managing more complex assignments, things become even more complicated, with a lack of face-to-face interaction making successful completion of projects nigh on impossible.

Another major issue is isolation. Remote workers typically spend many hours a day alone, with little to no interaction with colleagues. This not only saps the social element from work, but it also impacts morale. The less inspired your employees are, the less likely they are to strive for success on your behalf.

What’s more, it can be hard to build trust if you’re relying solely on remote teams. By not being able to establish rapport with team members, it becomes difficult to build positive relationships and construct strong interdepartmental dynamics. This can cause further complications with communication and significantly hamper team motivation.

Essential Skills for Remote Managers

Successful remote managers need to come armed with a suite of tools and methods if they are to succeed. For effective remote team communication, tools like Zoom are essential. As well as video conferencing solutions, you’ll need other AI-powered software and tools to enable better work management and boost productivity. Slack is one such tool, making it easier to manage multiple projects with ease, prioritize tasks, collaborate with others, and ensure everyone remains perfectly aligned.

A good remote manager also needs to be able to build trust and impart a sense of accountability. Once again, clear communication is key to this. However, as well as using the right tools, you’ll also need to be opening clear communication channels to facilitate feedback loops. Another powerful way to encourage accountability is to enable your teams to operate with a certain degree of autonomy, allowing them to make confident decisions independently.

It’s also important to set clear goals and expectations for your remote team members. Once workers can visualize these, they can better deliver what’s expected from them. Finally, ensure you need to consider how you’re introducing your team to the tools and technology they’ll be using to complete their jobs. Robust onboarding and continuous training are crucial if you want people to leverage technology stacks effectively.

Remote managers also need to boast exceptional levels of emotional intelligence. Self-awareness is central to this, with the best managers able to identify their own strengths and weaknesses. Social awareness is also important, with a good manager able to manage their own emotions and understand the needs and insights of others. Relationship management is also critical to emotional intelligence. Remote managers who want to succeed need to not only be able to build strong relationships, but also maintain them. Excellent communication skills and conflict resolution are part and parcel to this.

Best Practices for Managing Remote Teams

If it’s your first time supervising a remote team, following a few best practices for remote management will ensure you get the job done right. For starters, make sure you’re setting clear expectations and goals with everyone. This way, everyone remains accountable and has defined goalposts for which to strive. Next, ensure you’re making time for regular check-ins to guarantee everyone is on the same page. The more frequently you host these check-ins, the easier it will be to establish feedback loops that open the lines of communication.

Project management tools can also help ease the burden. Web-based tools like Trello can prove incredibly helpful, making it simple to facilitate Kanban-style project management. It’s also ideal if you’re looking to encourage collaboration. Other tools like Asana can also prove beneficial, offering plenty of features that foster team collaboration, with the option to assign tasks, communicate with others, set deadlines, and more.

Fostering Team Cohesion and Culture

One of the biggest drawbacks of remote working is that team cohesion and culture can suffer. However, these need not be left by the wayside. Virtual team-building activities can help bridge the gap between face-to-face interactions and remote work. As well as encouraging remote workers to connect with colleagues and establish healthy working relationships, these activities provide you with the perfect opportunity to introduce your teams to soft skills and methodologies they can apply directly to their work.

Celebrating achievements is also key to fostering an improved team culture. What’s more, this can be done relatively easily remotely. Whether it’s team birthdays or applauding expedited delivery of deadlines, it’s important to honor your team when they succeed. Virtual get-togethers and online awards ceremonies are a simple way to centralize your team and get everyone talking.

Aside from establishing communication channels for work, you’ll also want to open lines for less formal exchanges. Social interaction doesn’t have to stall just because you’re operating remotely, after all. Make time for informal interactions whenever possible, whether it’s a virtual lunch or a casual knowledge-sharing session.

Tools and Technologies for Effective Remote Management

A powerful suite of tools and technologies is essential for effective remote management. Without the direct supervision of line managers, time management can suffer. To overcome this, time-tracking apps can be utilized to monitor productivity in remote teams, while still giving remote employees a good amount of autonomy.

Communication tools are also essential. You can’t rely solely on phone calls and emails when managing a remote team. Instead, video conferencing solutions are a must if you’re to bring back some face-to-face interaction to a remote operation. This level of interaction is more engaging, increasing accountability and simplifying interactions. What’s more, it’s far better if you’re looking to enhance collaboration between remote workers.

Working remotely comes with a heap of technical challenges, which is why remote access and support tools are so important. Relevant tools for remote management include the likes of AnyDesk and Zoho Assist, offering cloud-based solutions that provide reliable remote access and support channels to overcome a host of technical problems.

Enhance Remote Collaboration with Flexible Workspaces

One of the biggest challenges of managing remote teams is ensuring seamless collaboration and maintaining a strong team dynamic. While digital tools help bridge the gap, nothing compares to the energy and creativity sparked by in-person interactions. At Mindspace, companies can provide their teams with beautifully designed coworking spaces that serve as an extension of their remote work setup. Whether employees need a dedicated office for focus time, an inspiring shared workspace for brainstorming sessions, or an event space for team gatherings, Mindspace offers fully serviced offices in prime locations. By incorporating flexible workspaces into a remote strategy, businesses can foster better teamwork, spark innovation, and provide employees with the best of both worlds—remote flexibility with the option for in-person connection.

Remote Team Management Styles

While managing remote teams calls for a specific raft of tools and unique methodologies, many different management styles can be applied to remote work. If you’re looking to make firm decisions quickly and ensure maximum cohesion, an authoritarian leadership style might be called for. The downside of this approach generally results in less creativity and collaboration, with the bulk of decision-making left to the one in charge.

Another option is coaching leadership. This approach involves developing the skills of the individual, making it ideal for remote businesses looking to encourage real growth and advancement. A successful leader needs to be able to quickly capitalize on an individual’s strengths while identifying weaknesses that can be improved upon. Perfect if you’re looking to introduce pathways to promotion and develop opportunities, coaching leadership does call for considerable time investment and requires a manager with strong interpersonal skills.

Managing Remote Teams is Easier Than You Think

Managing remote teams is far from easy. A dispersed workforce can expect to experience a host of communication challenges, while collaboration can also be stifled. Many remote workers also experience isolation, while it’s incredibly difficult to build a culture of trust when you’re operating remotely.

To overcome these issues, remote managers need to be well-versed in a range of leadership skills, tools, and methodologies. Effective communication skills and strong interpersonal abilities are a must, while a good remote manager also needs to be able to clearly outline goals and expectations. What’s more, a manager needs to excel when it comes to emotional intelligence, being able to lead by example in a remote setting.

Tools and technology can help overcome many of the issues encountered by remote teams. Online collaboration tools and video conferencing solutions can help combat isolation and improve communication, while time-keeping tools can be used to promote productivity. For more involved assignments and tasks, project management tools are a must, allowing managers to set clear deadlines, assign accountability, and monitor output.

If you’re looking to manage a remote team for the first time, adaptive leadership is something you’re going to have to get used to. Consider experimenting with different leadership styles as you engage remote employees, introducing new tools to your tech stack to get the job done.