By now, most leaders of knowledge workers have enabled their employees to work remotely. Whether you’re using Zoom, Google Hangouts or any other platform, you’re busy working out the kinks and figuring out how to make this work.
Your personal leadership has never been more visible. As during 9/11, your people will always remember how you handled working with them during this crisis. More than ever, you need to be open and empathetic to your teams’ anxieties and challenges, while also leading them forward to ensure work priorities and deliverables are maintained.
Here are some tips for leading your team effectively during this unprecedented time.
1) Check in with people personally. Your people are very anxious right now. Assume this is the case, even if they seem ok. More than ever, you need to show you care about them as human beings. Ask how they are coping with this crisis and offer to help in any way that you can. Make sure they know you appreciate everything they are doing to keep the company functioning.
2) Establish new ways to stay in touch. When people work remotely it’s more important to be clear and structured about how you will communicate. Weekly team meetings and one-on-ones may have been enough in the past, but during this crisis you may need more frequent short check-ins. Also consider that people can no longer just run into each other in the hallways to connect informally. Chat channels like Slack and G-chat help, but you might also consider setting up a regular online “tea-time” or “coffee break” to bring people online together just to hang out for a bit to socialize.
3) Be super clear about work priorities. What must get done, and what can slide during this crisis? A clear and relevant agenda is especially important to keep people who are working remotely on the same page regarding deliverables and deadlines. Discuss obstacles and solutions — Ask for their ideas.
4) Make sure the work-day expectations are clear, but flexible. It’s good to establish standard remote-work hours and let employees know they are expected to be working and available during those times. But make allowances for the fact that some of them are home with kids, pets, and family – So allow people to request modified schedules and accommodate as reasonable, and find ways to be sure everyone on the team knows about those special arrangements.
This pandemic is uncharted territory and is a learning process for our whole society. It is an opportunity for you to demonstrate your best leadership.