Developing leadership in remote work settings: ‘It’s not one-size-fits-all’

The pandemic forced employers to rethink processes and adapt to new ways of working. One often overlooked consequence of these changes was how we develop leadership.

Employers must now recognise a unique challenge: How do we develop effective leadership when working remotely? According to oVice’s chief human resource officer, Megan Reed, it can be done – it just requires building a connection.

“It all comes back to connection. What's a great learning and development opportunity for you is probably going to be very different from my perception … It comes down to building relationships and understanding what is important, what is meaningful for each individual that we support,” she said.

“It's not a one-size-fits-all. So, I talked about the tech stack needing to be fit for purpose, but so does the leadership engagement … It really is about creating connection. Leadership needs to be about interactions and not just transactions with employees. That's a critical part when we don't see people on a daily basis.”

Maintaining connections virtually can be done, it may just require new ways of thinking. Speaking to employees and finding out what they need to perform and learn in a remote setting is the simplest way to figure out what works. Blanket approaches that don’t consider individuality run the risk of alienating people.

“It is about understanding where that person is now and where they want to go. We have a business responsibility here to make sure that we're delivering outcomes, but it's about understanding that person. How do we do that? We need to connect. We need to understand, and that's what's critically important,” Reed said.

“So, a really simple and often overlooked tip for remote leadership is what we used to call the span of control. The number of direct reports that a manager has is reasonable and reasonably allows for the manager to be able to build those connections and truly interact on a one-on-one basis with their direct reports. It's such a simple tactic, but for a long time there, we were measured on spans of control, and we weren't allowed to be a manager unless we had a minimum number of direct reports. And I feel that that is quite antiquated in modern leadership, particularly when supporting remote workforces, people that you don't see. It's about creating connection.”

Leaders need to have the capability to be able to check up on staff, especially when they may be feeling isolated in a remote work setting. While not everyone requires constant attention, some do, and they need to be considered.

Reed continued: “It is very subjective. You could be a leader and try and deliver exactly the same sort of amount, quantity, and quality of connection with a variety of different members of your team.

“And it plays to wellbeing, because somebody who feels like they're being checked up on, it's going to play in their mental health, it's going to impact their engagement, their discretionary effort, their willingness to commit to the bigger goals. It's all connected.”

Starting and maintaining relationships in the workplace can help leaders, whether remote or face-to-face, foster effective connections, thereby improving their leadership capability.

“It is best practice leadership behaviour these days to start relationships and have those conversations. I like to do it and role model it by making sure that I'm prepared to talk about myself as well,” said Reed.

“So, it's really important that companies that are engaging a remote or a flexible workforce do actually have policies, programmes and guidelines in place to manage that.”

The transcript of this podcast episode was slightly edited for publishing purposes. To listen to the full conversation with Megan Reed, click below: