How can you lead virtual teams through uncertainty?

“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.” — Sun Tzu Lead virtual teams through uncertainty by maintaining clear, consistent communication and setting realistic expectations. Offer regular updates and be transparent about challenges. Foster a supportive environment where team members feel heard and valued. Encourage collaboration and flexibility, and provide resources and tools to help navigate changes. By demonstrating calm and resilience, you help your team adapt and stay focused on their goals.

While most of the high performing leaders have clarity of where they are going and they know what success looks like to them as a leader, it is equally important to extend the same to the team to have shared goals and collective outcomes. It helps to have a conversation with the team to understand what can you do to make your team successful in their role..

One thing I have found helpful is to have a two ways communication between the team. Create a safe environment, build trust and nurture authentic relationships. Setting clear purposeful goals, timelines and expectations for the team to progress and celebrate each milestone together. Addressing performances fairly and transparently. Giving the credit where it’s due.

Communication is an important parameter that must be aligned with the goal. In my career, many managers failed to communicate clearly and ended up missing opportunities for teammates to grow. They were always unhappy about not doing things and they didn't know the reason why team members refused to do something.

This is so important. There is an adage that says in the absence of information, human beings will imagine the worst. Savvy leaders take heed of this because it’s true. And it is easy to underestimate the difficulty in crafting and delivering a clear message. With uncertainty, emotion easily replaces rational thought. In my own experience I’ve seen the workforce connect different pieces of information and come up with conclusions that were erroneous. Communication must be clear, concise, and constant. It should be in a variety of formats including written, virtual, and in person. And it should reinforced by leaders at every level. This means your leaders must be onboard with whatever change is being implemented and carry the banner.

Working with global virtual teams across 11 countries, one attribute that stands out is a strong sense of ownership. Each team member must take ownership of their project, regardless of the level at which they are working. This attribute is crucial for the success of a virtual team. An AI-Enabled tech environment helps keep projects on track, which is a boon when working remotely with large team sizes.

a) Get to know your direct reports well. Beyond work as well if you can. b) ZoomOut to people who you think would deliver, ZoomIn to work with those who may falter. c) Provide flexibility, but keep an eye out of not being unfair to a person who has to take the slack of another out of habit. Step in and resolve before other challenges emerge.

In my experience it is less about clear roles or close performance meaning and much more about creating empowerment. I have experienced remote teams working on products that would just not exist (or not make sense) in their country or location. - empowering requires to be clear on the direction. Only in this way you can TRUST people to follow it - the direction requires context : and this context has to take into consideration the reading one will have of this context

In my experience, its almost impossible to be an effective leader if there is a lack of mutual trust. Leaders must trust employees otherwise they fall into micromanaging, which is unhelpful. Set SMART goals and keep the lines of communication open to discuss progress. Likewise, if there is a lack of trust in leadership, the organization suffers. This fosters disengagement, low productiity, and turnover. Hiring the right talent helps leaders trust that staff are capable and competent. I have found that if staff are not able to meet their goals (behavioral or professional), it is important to hold them accountable with direct, specific and empathetic feedback. Feedback is a gift that gives us the opportunity to know where we can improve.

In my experience, confidence goes beyond trust and all team members are invited to work on it specially on virtual environments, where each person handles their time and workload. Each team member needs to gain it with humble and honest attitude. The team leader, should find the correct combination of tasks, time, skills and people to delegate responsibilities and empower the team. The entire team needs to be committed and have clear goals to support and push each other to keep the accountability. A good balance of confidence, empowerment and delegation can make the difference in a teamwork result.

Most importantly a virtual team members should inherently feel their participation in exchange of views,values and thoughts for grooming up the company in the right directions

One of the things that might be a challenge is to make team members understand that asking for collaboration is part of the teamwork. Each teammate, should be ready to request and receive help. To share knowledge and tasks. To cover the team’s back. No one should be considered less for not having an specific skill, knowledge or having lack of time to complete a job. It’s important to be honest about our strengths and weaknesses and relay on other team members to improve ourselves and achieve the team’s goals.

Even though virtual team members are not together in person, leaders ought to communicate and interact with virtual members as if they are together. Being positive and engaged in a virtual teams environment is essential to navigating uncertainty and challenging circumstances. Practicing proper etiquette (i.e., muting when not speaking, being polite), smiling, and actively listening to other participants is important. When virtual teams members find that a leader is genuine and sincerely concerned about them and the work at hand, it goes a long way toward advancing effective organizational leadership.

The more the teams are global the more virtual they tend to be. For the individuals' well-being it is important to not only have team meetings but also one-on-one social time to support team member's social wellbeing. Many time the team members working virtually may feel that they need to compensate for the team members being onsite. It's important to have clear job descriptions as well as rules for those contributing virtually. If there is no clarity this may lead to situation where one is working round the clock. Leader needs to be clear on expectations and give direct feedback for accomplishments to support good work life balance. This supports wellbeing and resilience.

Well-being of the team is imprescindible for each member. Being virtually is a little more challenging but it’s not impossible. Leader should make sure to be there for his/her people. To listen to them. To be interested in their daily work and also, respecting the privacy, care about their personal life. All members should feel part of the team and should have non-work conversation to know each other better. Be aware of any attitude or sign of burnout and offer a hand. No one should have the sense of persecution or feel ignored. Both extremes are unhealthy.

Understand your team's unique dynamics; let each member shine. Successful virtual leadership demands tailored communication tools. Experiment boldly, but avoid tool overload. Strive for balance: tools enhance productivity without burden. Incentivize software usage, ensure steady adoption, offer recorded training. I advocate a triad of team meetings: one - weekly business-focused, one leisurely catch-up, and one personalized one-on one. This fosters unity and growth without overloading schedules. Embrace technology as a thread that weaves team unity; seek equilibrium where tools empower, and communication reflects productivity.

Open windows for any sorts suggestions, situations and day to day changes be on track. Regular synthesis on the issues to be on priority to tackle in the future .

When managing a virtual team, carefully curate what the group’s understanding of what productivity looks like. Some may objectively view that productivity = quantitive results, whereby others would presume productivity = qualitative results. Some projects/tasks require one or the other, or both. Whichever it is, a clear definition of success should be created. If there are stronger players for either category, make sure their voices and ideas are heard in this regard, occasionally providing room for personal and professional development to explore the other side of the productivity arena. At the end of the project make sure to go over, as a group, the strengths, learning points, and curveballs that the project entailed for future learning

Although it's a virtual supervising system works but periodically surprise visit and face to face discussions should be there.