Mastering Remote Leadership: Key Skills for Leading Virtual Teams

The ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu once said, “A leader is best when people barely know he exists.” This quote certainly rings true when it comes to remote leadership skills. 

Hands-on leadership works well if your team works in an office, but remote leaders don’t have that luxury. Mastering remote leadership is about creating a culture of trust and transparency that empowers teams around the globe to achieve company objectives and reach their full potential. 

Understanding remote leadership

In this post, we’ll teach you critical virtual leadership skills, help you overcome challenges while working remotely, and show some examples of great remote leaders. But first, let’s gain a greater understanding of what remote leadership is.  

What Is remote leadership? 

Remote leadership is the act of leading a team that doesn’t work from one central location. It’s about empowering and developing talent with limited face time across different physical locations. Aside from the challenges of physical distance, remote leadership goals are the same as those of leaders managing remote teams in person. 

The importance of remote leadership skills

While the goals of remote leadership are the same as those of any other form of leadership, the methods remote leaders use are very different. A lack of face time, time zone differences, and a slew of other factors impact remote leaders in ways that in-office leaders don’t have to face. 

Essential remote leadership skills for success

Now that we’re aware of the importance of remote leadership and how the skills of in-person leaders differ, let’s look at the skills that make a great remote team leader. 

Communication skills

Communication skills are essential in every form of leadership, but proximity allows in-person leaders to convey tone better and communicate through nonverbal methods more efficiently and effectively.

Remote leaders don’t have the luxury of proximity on their side. In addition to being an excellent verbal communicator, remote leaders will also need to:

• Hone their written communication skills.
• Master the cultural differences of their global teams.
• Deal with time zone differences that lead to asynchronous communication.
• Spot signs of burnout, overwork, and other employee well-being issues without face time.

Emotional intelligence and empathy

There’s no such thing as a great leader who lacks emotional intelligence and empathy. That said, remote leaders will need an abundance of these soft skills to be successful. Proximity, cultural differences, and other factors impact remote teams more than in-office ones, so it’s crucial to master these skills. 

Spotting the subtleties of burnout, navigating employee conflicts, and generally gauging employee engagement as a remote leader requires an EQ and attention to detail that in-office managers can function without. 

Adaptability and flexibility

Adaptability and flexibility are crucial for remote teams. Take meetings, for instance. When you manage an in-office team, you all work the same hours, meet in a conference room at agreed-upon times, and work together. 

Timezone differences can significantly impact the success of a remote team. Global remote managers need to be flexible and meet outside of regular business hours to face time with specific team members. At Hubstaff, we even rely on asynchronous one-on-ones to keep schedules open and account for these timezone differences. 

Time management and organization 

Proper time management is a vital trait of any good manager. If you struggle with time management, consider exploring some time management techniques to find one that works best for you. Additionally, software can ease the burden of time management for you and your team. Time tracking tools allow you to track time to specific tasks, cut down on meeting time, and take control of your time.  

Remote leadership models and frameworks

With so many different skills to master, how does one ever become a better remote leader? For many, remote leadership models and frameworks are a way to get organized and become the great remote leader you’d like to be.  

Popular remote leadership models

When it comes to remote leadership models, there are a few popular frameworks that successful leaders turn to: 

• Situational leadership. Situational leadership is about adapting your leadership style to the challenges you’re currently facing. In other words, the core tenet of situational leadership is that no leadership style suits all situations. It’s great for remote leaders who deal with cultural differences, asynchronous hours, and other unique challenges.
  
• Servant leadership. The essence of servant leadership is putting your remote employees first. This leadership style can really work for remote team leads who have flexible hours. They can rely on strong active listening skills to attend to the needs of their employees first and then use their remaining time to focus on independent work.
  
• Laissez-faire leadership. Laissez-faire translates to “let it happen.” While Laissez-faire leadership is slightly more strict than the term itself, the goal is to create a culture of trust where autonomous teams can develop. It’s great for remote teams where strict, authoritarian leadership styles wouldn’t work well anyway.

• Authoritarian leadership. Authoritarian leadership sounds harsh, and it often is. While I don’t personally condone this leadership style, I’d be lying if I said others don’t. With authoritarian leadership, the leader makes almost all decisions. While this style might work in crucial situations, it’s ripe with the potential for micromanagement that can damage trust across your team. 

(Source: Value Circle) 

Building a remote leadership framework

If there isn’t a popular remote leadership model that you directly connect with, who’s to say you can’t create your own? Now that you’ve learned about some remote leadership styles, you can work to create a framework that takes the best parts of each model.

For instance, maybe you try to be a Laissez-faire leader most days, but during busy season you might have to use a little authoritarian leadership to finalize decisions and get your team over the hump. This line of thinking also starts to land you in the situational leadership head space. 

Through it all, trust and transparency with your team is most important. If you do take a situational approach to leadership, be specific about how you plan to handle different situations in the form of formal documentation. 

Overcoming remote leadership challenges

You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t accepting of the fact that remote leadership is difficult. However, while all leadership is challenging, remote leadership is unique in the way it tests all those involved. Let’s take a look at some popular remote leadership challenges. 

Virtual leadership challenges

Virtual leaders are faced with unique challenges that their in-office counterparts are less likely to face, like: 

• Social isolation. We’re huge fans of remote working at Hubstaff, but even we can’t deny the severity of the remote isolation issue. The U.S. Surgeon General deemed remote loneliness a public health crisis, so it’s crucial to help remote workers stay engaged and connected from afar. 
  
• Non-verbal challenges. Tools like Gmail and Slack allow us to communicate, but a lot of nuance is lost in written communication. With less ability to convey tone, body language, and other subtleties of communication, it can be harder to gauge employee well-being.
  
• Technology issues. In the digital age, even in-office teams have outages and tech issues that can derail productivity — but at least leadership can rely on in-person communication as a backup. Virtual leaders don’t have that luxury.
  

Solutions for common challenges

Just like the Dave Chapelle meme has taught us, modern problems require modern solutions, right? Fortunately, there are a number of solutions for the issues above: 

• Use async one-on-ones and team building. Preventing remote loneliness requires extra effort. Turn to team-building games, virtual retreats, and one-on-ones to ensure employees feel like part of the team from the moment they’re onboarded.
  
• Make cameras mandatory in meetings. It may sound a bit like authoritarian leadership, but make sure all team members are turning cameras on in meetings. This way, you can read nonverbal cues that can reveal if employees are lost, bored, frustrated, or pleased with workloads.
  
• Address tech issues in a communication manifesto. To prevent the chaos of technology outages, plan ahead by creating emergency guidelines in a communication manifesto. For instance, you could create a hierarchy of communication tools. If one goes down, team members would know where to go next.  

Enhancing remote leadership through continuous learning

Great leaders know that the job is never done. Remote leadership is no different and requires the same commitment to continuous improvement as any other form of leadership. If you’re new to remote leadership or looking to hone your skills, here are some leadership skill development ideas.

Remote leadership skill development

In a previous post, I put together a list of the best remote team management training programs. Here are a few of the highlights: 

• Udemy: Essential Remote Hybrid Training for Managers of All Levels. Learn to actualize the potential of your remote and hybrid teams with this universal training from Udemy’s Mike Gutman. You’ll learn how to be more adaptable, productive, and efficient while still prioritizing the psychological safety of your team. 

• GitLab: How to Manage a Remote Team. Learn to create a sound, remote culture through the creation of a better remote strategy and policy. Darren Murph of GitLab leads this 11-hour crash course in all things remote team management. 

• HubSpot: Remote Leadership Training: How to Manage a Remote Team. Hubspot Academy and Zoom join forces to give us this versatile remote leadership training program. You’ll learn how to overcome remote work challenges, set up a remote office, and find the right tools to thrive in a remote work environment. 

Recommended books on remote leadership

If webinars and training aren’t your thing, there are plenty of great books on remote leadership training. Here are a couple of ideas to get you started: 

• Leading from Anywhere by David Burkus. Leading from Anywhere takes remote leaders through the entire employee lifecycle, from hiring and onboarding to establishing a healthy remote culture. There’s also a strong emphasis on the nuances of remote productivity tracking. 

• Office Optional: How to Build a Connected Culture with Virtual Teams by Larry English. Centric Consulting president Larry English takes you through remote culture building based on direct experiences gained from growing his global consulting business to 1,000 employees. 

Case studies and examples of successful remote leadership

By now, you’re well aware of the importance of mastering remote leadership skills — but what does that actually look like in practice? Let’s take a look at some case studies and real-life examples.

Real-life examples

• OneIMS. This global agency mastered remote leadership by implementing remote workforce management technology to reduce the management burden. They’ve since experienced 25% cost savings from unnecessary tasks, increased project savings, and a 30% increase in value provided to customers.
  
• Alpha Efficiency. This 100% remote company has leveraged technology to reduce payroll hours by almost 80%. They’ve also seen a 30% uptick in project completion due to better tech adoption.
  
• PostHog. A/B Testing juggernaut PostHog rose to prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, they’ve fully embraced remote work and turned to Deel’s Contractor Management platform to save ~$50K annually on payroll and time-off approvals. 

Lessons learned

Above all else, best in class leaders look to technology to make the weaknesses of remote leadership their strengths. Whether it’s automating payroll, smoothing communication, or increasing productivity, tools like Hubstaff can help. 

Conclusion

Mastering remote leadership won’t happen overnight. But, with the right tools, you can adapt to the changing digital landscape and take your remote management skills to the next level. The perfect blend of soft skills and remote technology can help you lead virtual teams from anywhere in the world and (in our humble opinion) reach levels of efficiency that in-office teams simply cannot.

Have any tips and tricks that have helped you become a better remote manager that we may have missed? We’d love to hear from you!