How to Lead Your Virtual Team Kindly and Courageously

The world is changing and the need to lead kindly and courageously is even more crucial and this also means when we lead virtually. Leading a virtual team requires the same sort of leadership skills as in-person situations, but it also poses different challenges.

These challenges demand an adjustment in leadership techniques and skills, but that doesn’t mean that virtual leadership is as far removed from in-person leadership as you might think.

If you’re a virtual leader, here’s how you can lead effectively, with kindness and courage, even when your team are in different places and facing different challenges and obstacles.

Emphasise communication

While you might not be in the same room, which means you can’t talk face-to-face, there are many ways to facilitate meaningful communication with your virtual team.

Video calls, emailing, phone calls, instant messaging and even text messaging are ways that you can talk with your team regularly and effectively. These types of communication can feel more informal and so may not be taken as seriously by some team members.

This is why setting clear guidelines for the use of these communication methods is important. These guidelines should include things like what to do with differences in time zones, and how to communicate urgent messages.

Build trust at every opportunity

Without being able to spend time together in person, it can be harder to develop trust within your relationships with your team members. It’s important that you really take the time to communicate with each member of the team and get to know them individually.

Whether this is through instant messaging or regular phone or video calls, you have to try even harder than in person. You must be willing to be available to your team, more so than you would be if you were in an office environment. Being honest, open and available to your team will help foster that trust and promote your accessibility. 

Ensure your team has clarity on their tasks

Your team members must know what you expect of them at any given time. You need to ensure that you have clarified each person’s role in a project or task so that there is no uncertainty.

As their leader, ask yourself if your team members know exactly what they need to do, what the other team members are going to be doing, if the deadlines are clear, and how results should be reported.

As Brene Brown so perfectly put it, “Clarity is kindness. Unclear is unkind.” If your team aren’t meeting your expectations or achieving the desired results, you must ask yourself why that is. Is it because you haven’t actually been clear to begin with.

Make sure that your team knows that they are able to come to you and ask questions for clarity if need be. It’s better that they know they can approach you, rather than flounder without direction.

In turn, if you are looking at a seat at the table, that executive role or you lead a business or team - you must learn from the best in Online Leadership Development and Coaching with Sonia McDonald as the key coach and the team at McDonald Inc.

Learn more HERE

Provide support and make it clear it’s available

The virtual working environment can be isolating for some people; they might thrive on the energy of being in an office space with others around. Your job as a leader is to make sure that your team is supported emotionally, as well as professionally. Check in with each team member regularly, to ask how they are doing - and really mean it.

You should also encourage your team to ask for help from you if they need it. A team that feels supported is a happy team, even in a virtual environment. This is also a great way to practice kindness.

Empower your team to exercise authority

Virtual teams are challenged by time; sometimes decisions need to be made quickly, and there isn’t time to seek out approval or direction from their leaders. This means empowering your team so that they are comfortable exercising their authority when necessary.

It can be hard to relinquish some of your control, but the most courageous leaders are those who trust in their teams and allow them some autonomy. You must also support the decisions your team members make, even if they aren’t the same decisions you might make.

Virtual leadership in a virtual world requires courage and kindness

Many leadership skills that are effective for traditional leadership also translate to virtual teams; you just need to be aware of the subtle differences that require an altered approach.

By establishing communication, empowering and supporting your team with clarity and kindness, you will build trust and develop a great relationship with each member of your team.

Be courageous enough to embrace the benefits of virtual work, and kind enough to understand the struggles that come with it, not just for yourself but for your team as well.

About McDonald Inc.

Our Online Programs and Modules

• Online Leadership Academy
• Online Self Paced Courageous Leadership Program and Group Coaching
• Online Modules - Courageous Conversations, Leader as a Coach, Leading Teams and more

Our Leadership Legacy

At McDonald Inc., we know that courageous leaders inspire courageous action. For more than 20 years our founder Sonia McDonald has been nurturing executives, businesses and leadership teams through leadership coaching, workshops and leadership programs.

We don’t just train your employees we transform them into courageous leaders. Whether you are looking to continue to develop your high performing leaders and teams or need help turning around a poor leadership culture, McDonald Inc. offers in-house programs and coaching.

Mission

To foster courageous leadership in organisations across the globe by training, mentoring and coaching emerging leaders, team leaders, managers and executives.

Vision

At McDonald Inc. we seek to foster courageous and kind leadership so that the people leave work smiling each day, in turn creating more prosperous and successful businesses.

Brand Values

McDonald Inc. develops the skills, confidence, and leadership of leaders at any point in their journey as well as facilitating cultural transformation. We benefit our clients by assisting them to have higher staff retention, improved performance through teamwork and an overall more profitable bottom line.

Contact us

Website – https://www.mcdonaldinc.com.au/

Email – [email protected]

Phone – 1300 719 665