More and more businesses are moving towards flexible working, but to make it a success there are three things a leader must do.
First: Build trust
When leading people at a distance, the foundation of good relationships is trust. People need to trust each other, and that means getting to know each other. If you are successful at building trust, you will have people across your organisation always willing to pick up the phone whenever they need information or need to discuss a problem with someone else.
Also, it is important to use whatever face-to-face time you have with your people in ways that will get everyone learning more about each other. Too often companies just have meetings with PowerPoint presentations (one after the other!), instead of organising ways for their people to discuss/debate key topics and get to know each other better.
Remember: Success is having people feeling comfortable enough to contact each other straight away when any opportunities or issues arise.
Second: Delegate outcomes
Leaders must move away from managing activities to leading based on outcomes. When you are leading people at a distance, it is difficult to manage activities. You are just not close enough to your people to manage them on an activity level.
What's important is to delegate and manage outcomes that your people can own, and then coach them on the activities to complete them. It takes some up-front thinking to define the right outcomes for your people to own, but saves a great deal of time later in not having to manage all the activities.
Next, follow-up is key, as it reinforces the right behaviours; but more importantly, it sends the signal that the outcomes they are delivering are important. In your people's minds:
- Follow-up = important.
- No follow-up = not important.
Third: Provide access to information
For everyone to feel involved at the same level, everyone needs access to the same information. Information is one of the key drivers of organisations, and having everyone with the information they need to do their job effectively is important. In the virtual world, you can't just go around the corner and get a question answered.
The virtual/flexible world really requires information to be accessible from anywhere, and this is driving the need for information databases or internet applications to provide easy access to the information wherever your people are located.
In summary:
- Build trust.
- Delegate outcomes.
- Provide access to the same information.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
