A quick how-to: Creating safe spaces for your remote teams

As a people manager, you're in a privileged position to create safe spaces for your team. As a leader working with remote teams, you may feel that you're disadvantaged given your team members are scattered across the country and out of your physical reach. But what would you say if I told you otherwise?

I've been on both ends of the spectrum - office-based and remote. And let me tell you, I've never felt more connected with a team than with the team I now handle remotely. "But how, Marga?" you may ask. It starts with one simple thing: treating your team members as functional adults. Now, you may be reading this and raising your eyebrow at me but hear me out.

A Harvard study says that employees work more efficiently when they receive hands-on support from their managers. The caveat of that is that the support is supposed to be the opposite of micromanaging. I'm paraphrasing of course so don't quote me on that. So what does that mean exactly in a remote set-up? It starts with creating boundaries.

Remote work has one big advantage for digital nomads: your managers are literally physically unable to look over your shoulder to pressure you into working harder. Now, that doesn't mean there are no ways for remote managers to be overwhelming. There are always those every 5-minute messages, incessant calls, or even hourly emails. And that's where boundaries come in.

As a manager, it falls on you to build rapport with your team members. It's your job to wade through all the polite bullshit and work niceties to really get to the core of who your team members are. Knowing their names, their hobbies and interests, their working styles, their learning styles, and even who they are outside of work. These nuances help you realize that your team members are human beings. Sure, they work for you because they need to earn a living but there's so much more to them than that. Getting to know your team members on a level wherein you can view them as human beings with everyday struggles will change your management style completely.

The second part of getting to know your team members is having them get to know you. After all, a partnership only works when it's a two-way exchange. Once you establish partnerships with your team members, you are building a foundation of empowered and meaningful work. Of course, that's easier said than done. Powerful partnerships do not happen overnight. They develop gradually and over time. It requires constant nourishing and of course, at the end of that spectrum, having difficult conversations.

Opening yourself and your team to difficult conversations is akin to opening yourselves to infinite possibilities. In struggles, there's always a lesson to be had. Imagine that in every struggle, you had someone with you to help you through it and guide you through the lessons that come with it. That's what true partnership is like.

I recently published an article about my Athena journey without any goal in mind except to simply share my story. Unbeknownst to me, it created an opportunity for my team to reach out to me and share their own stories with me. We may not have gone down the same path but the paths that we took were geared towards a similar course, and by that, I felt even more connected to them more than ever.

So, let's go back to boundaries. Being open to your team and having your team open up to you is a beast in itself. Not all will be receptive, and that's okay. Rome wasn't built in a day after all. Those difficult conversations? Boundaries will be one of those for sure. That includes work hours and respecting their time outside of those hours. That includes topics that would be trigger points for some like politics, romantic relationships, or even family dynamics. The important takeaway from those difficult conversations must be an awareness that you and your partners (team members) have established clear boundaries and the expectations that may come with it.

So, what is the end goal of all this? The end goal is to create genuine and real connections with your team members in order for your Zoom meetings to not feel like a chore. The end goal is to make those meetings feel more like touchpoints and brainstorming sessions wherein everyone is free to be their authentic selves and be able to contribute freely without limits.