Over the next couple of months, I will be doing a deep dive into Patrick Lencioni’s work on dysfunctional teams for a few logical reasons.
It has been an odd couple of years, to say the least, with remote working becoming the norm, economic movement unseen before by current generations, digital transformation growth at an unprecedented rate, and our teams’ mental health reaching breaking point.
If ever there was a time to lead our teams well, it’s now.
As a lead into my future posts, I want to remind you of the top line fundamentals of leading a virtual team.
The Key to Leading Any Virtual Team: Communication and Process
I know this is logical considering the topic of this post, and your team aren’t around the corner in the next office, or the coffee shop, or walking along the corridor on their way to the bathroom.
Consequently, the short chit chats, connections and conversations don’t happen in the same way. This can leave certain team members feeling ‘out of the loop’ and, in some cases, unheard or neglected, depending on their personality and profile.
With conversations being vital to our sense of connectedness, how will you achieve this with your virtual team?
The easiest way to do this is to set up a process that includes setting ‘connection’ points in the diary. As a leader, depending on the size of your team, you might want a weekly check-in with every member as well as a weekly MS Teams or Zoom get-together with your team.
Here your diary is your friend; otherwise, it can be incredibly easy to suddenly realise you haven’t spoken to Alex in over ten days when it isn’t part of your plan and process.
Not ideal for his motivation or overall team motivations. The truth is that if you have forgotten about supporting Alex, who else have you missed?
The most critical component of a successful virtual team is momentum. Working from home is very different from the camaraderie of the office, and you might find it noticeably more challenging to keep the energy up in your team.
The momentum in your team can slip due to a lack of contact that organically happens within the office. It is easier for employees to slip up when they haven’t got their colleagues to voice queries and ideas with – some tasks might get added to ‘to-do’ lists but then forgotten about – due to a lack of constant communication.
The best strategy to combat this is frequent video calls – repeated each day simultaneously, with extra as and when needed. Encourage your team to use video to connect instead of phone calls when they need to discuss something.
Video calls are proven to be better at communicating ideas – your team will feel more confident and secure in their roles when they are sure that they and their colleagues are on the same page regarding tasks.
Many leaders we work with here at Zestfor set up a team charter and system to make communications work.
Technology is your friend.
Many organisations have their internal chat system or utilise Slack or other systems. One team has fun with the process, too, and Friday afternoon communication can only be by gif!
Know and Understand Your Team
Some of you reading this post might have attended one of our Insights training workshops, so you will understand the impact of your Fiery red, Sunshine yellow, Earth green or Cool blue mix and how you might respond to being led virtually.
As a leader, using data and information like this can make the relationships with your team flow entirely differently.
For instance, now you understand that Florence, one of your data team, isn’t being awkward; she is more cautious and will always have questions because she wants to get it right for you and the team.
Understanding your team in this way will be pivotal to everyone’s success. If you want to have a conversation about how Insights Discovery might work for your team, drop us a line here.
Understanding your team leads logically onto point three, and that is building trust.
Build Trust
Trust is becoming one of the most important factors for building productive companies across the globe, and it starts with you as a leader.
Virtual teams are now more likely to work from home; therefore, it can be difficult to build trust between team members when they can’t read each other’s body language or when the message becomes confused because of cultural differences.
Trust is built on reliability and clear communication as a start. As a leader, you are in control of this with your virtual team. Develop this area of your leadership toolbox, and you will be surprised at the results. I am going to cover this further in future posts.
Share The Vision and Mission Consistently
Of all the leadership skills to develop, developing and communicating your vision is perhaps the most important. Having a vision of the future or a definite business goal makes it easier for the team to know what they’re working towards.
Vision can also inspire action and encourage a virtual team to focus so that they create outstanding results.
How many of the areas I have shared can you tick? Look out for our series of posts starting later this month.
Until next time,
Julia Carter
How Can We Help Your Leadership Performance?
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Click here for a full programme description or call one of our team on 0845 548 0833.
About Zestfor
Zestfor specialises in developing leadership Training programmes and resources scientifically tailored for technical markets – including Pharmaceutical, I.T., and Life Sciences.
Our blend of in-classroom, online, and virtual live-stream delivery methods will engage and assure even the most introverted team members from the first meeting – whether face-to-face or virtually. So, to have a brief chat, call us on 0845 548 0833
