An Era of Remote Working

Since COVID-19, working remotely has been a primary topic of conversation. Common questions raised against remote work are usually framed in these common objections:

How can productivity and accountability be ensured when employees are not physically present?

Isn’t collaboration and creativity hindered due to the lack of face-to-face interaction?

How do you maintain a cohesive company culture when the team is working in different locations?

I certainly have my skepticism of remote work but also appreciate the flexibility it provides for many people and organisations. Many professionals need to embrace this technological age, remote work is here and it’s only going to become more prominent.

This new way of working massively affects the dynamics within organisations. And as a leader, it poses a variety of new challenges when trying to lead teams.

How It Will Change Leadership

The shift to remote work transforms the team dynamic from one of spontaneous, face-to-face interaction. To an environment that requires intentional, technology-mediated communication and collaboration. This means leaders must adapt their approaches to maintain engagement, cohesion and productivity in a dispersed, ever-changing virtual environment.

The loss of physical interactions will break the routine of impromptu meetings. The types of conversations that are sparked around break rooms and desks. Physical proximity in an office or similar type work space that fosters immediate, informal collaboration. Where information can be easily accessed freely and fluidly. An environment that brings a sense of cohesion that cannot be replaced by the virtual world.

As a leader, you are primarily judged by your ability to communicate. In-person communication, being the cornerstone of how you motivate and inspire people. It’s how you spread your personality and your values. Instead, you need to translate these behaviours and ideologies through virtual communication and systems.

Typically, poorly structured teams are bred from the divide of command and disjointed departments. Remote work only emphasises these problems. The insufficient spread of resources, working like isolated islands with no vision or clarity of purpose.

Decisions made are linear, often firefighting current problems that have arisen from poor communication across silos of the organisation. Accountability is low, and as a leader it is really hard to keep tabs on all isolated departments when they are working remotely.

Poor structure will lead to weak team cohesion. Not because of geographical divide but because of disjointed departments working as separate entities. This will cause a cultural divide breaking the possible effectiveness of a cross-functional team. Multiple teams working in different directions, fueling unnecessary rivalries and conflict. Decision-making subject to slow verification from teams with different ideologies and clashing perspectives.

As a leader you want to strive to bring cross-functional remote departments together. To do this you need to create autonomous systems and methods that can be built into your teams. Allowing you to effectively manage organisations of any size, in an effective and efficient manner.

Strategic Departmentalisation

With this shift to the virtual world of remote working, leaders will have to realign their expectations of how they can be an effective leader. I am going to propose a focus on structural strategy that will allow you to run a high performance team remotely. This ideology will harness the positives of this virtual dynamic whilst also trying to negate the issues remote working creates.

Every company with a reasonably sized workforce will be divided into departments. Departmentalisation into small adaptable teams is an effective method of structuring an organisation. However, doing so needs to be a planned operation.

Defined KPIs

Firstly, the KPIs of your organisation’s departments need to be defined. The targets of these teams need to be clear and concise, whilst still remaining congruent with the philosophies of your company’s vision and culture. In other words, despite having clear differences in objectives, the overall goal each department is contributing to needs to be the same.

As an example, think of Tesla. Their mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy through the manufacture of high-quality electric vehicles. Their engineers focus on developing cutting-edge technology that makes their cars more efficient, attractive and sustainable. Their manufacturing department ensures that they can produce high-quality EV’s within a feasible production cost. Tesla’s marketers and sales team build the brand’s global awareness. Working on educating consumers about the benefits of EVs and renewable energy.

Even slightly more diverse silos of organisations like the autonomous driving department, developing self-driving technologies and AI systems. Increase the safety and efficiency of EVs, making them a more appealing choice to consumers. Or their sustainability and regulatory affairs department, who ensure Tesla complies with global environmental and safety regulations. They still holistically align with Tesla’s mission by ensuring sustainability throughout every aspect of the business.

Your organisation will most likely be a lot different to Tesla’s EV future intense mission but your ability to create an alignment of vision is crucial. This vision needs to be integrated into the culture of all the work your team does, in an attempt to keep your remote departments cohesive. In order to do this, you must set your departments clear objectives so they understand the responsibilities within their remit.

Remote Communication

The biggest contributor to overall organisational efficiency will be the ability to make your departments work autonomously. Because of the nature of isolation the remote working environment poses, you will need to combat this with a culture that promotes initiative. Your individual departments need to be self-sufficient and you need to set them up with the framework and systems to work in this manner.

If we want to go beyond the cultural aspects of building a vision, we need to create systematic processes within our day-to-day operations. You need to create clear communication channels and strategies that provide structure to the information being passed around your organization.

This should include:

• Well-structured accessible documentation of relevant company information. (Including company Intranets, company dashboards etc).

• Efficiently managed ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) Systems and Project Management Tools.

• You as a leader, facilitate short scheduled meetings with department leaders that focus on realigning on long-term goals.

Even though these methods should be standard, the effectiveness of these systems needs to be even further emphasised when leading in a remote environment. Adjusting your communication systems and strategies is a primary area you need to adapt to as a leader, in this ever-increasing remote working landscape. By maintaining effective communication, you can continue to operate as a cohesive and collaborative unit.

How To Be Everywhere At Once

When leading remotely, you need to build a chain of command with departmental leaders whohave adopted your philosophies into their ways of working. To do this, the middle managers you select for these roles, need to be installed with the same mindset as yours. Your values, ideologies and ambitions should align as one. This will install a natural cohesion regardless of strain introduced by cross-functional communication.

Note, the larger the organisation the tougher a challenge this will be to manage, but by cultivating a majority of like-minded middle managers, you will slowly create a like-minded culture within your business.

In order to do this, you will need to recruit with an emphasis on an individual’s personality. Internal promotion is an effective way of harnessing cultural conditioning, as institutionalised team members will understand the expectations and KPIs of their departments. To do this, you need to consistently display the behaviours and actions that you want mirrored, from the other leaders in your organisation. Behaviour is contagious and from leading by example, you can implement cultural conditioning all the way through the hierarchical pyramid.

As a leader, you need cross-functional departments that can act on initiative. Remote working means you cannot have a consistent overview, resulting in the support you provide to your team being limited. By focusing on building competent and self-sufficient leaders, you can sustain an effective authority chain within each department that doesn’t require your divided attention.

The Killer of Efficiency

The biggest killer of efficiency in businesses, organisations and any sort of team environment, is slow decision-making. Working remotely will only slow down this process. To be effective, you need to work with mobility and fluidity.

The leaders of your departments need to act efficiently on their own initiatives, carrying this confidence and competency into the way they operate their small adaptable teams. This will allow your organisation to solve problems in a non-linear fashion. By making the majority of decision-making departmental, you won’t allow processes to become oversaturated with too many differing perspectives and egos.

With each department understanding its roles and responsibilities, they will be able to effortlessly digest problems, without the need for regular oversight. With the governance of their secondary, self-sufficient leader, that will mirror your approach and ways of working. However, when issues require multiple angles of departmental responsibilities, ensure your team acts accordingly. By utilising effective techniques of communication, as mentioned previously, that focus on clear and concise transmissions of information.

Conclusion

To be an effective leader in this transitional landscape of remote working. You need to bring a clear organisational goal that will align your teams, alongside clear KPIs that will define your departmental strategies. With departments led by like-minded middle managers who will adopt the same values and ideologies, building a culture of unity in your decision-making. You’ll need to build systems and frameworks that will promote autonomy, with clear communication bridging the gaps of your remotely working individuals.

These fundamentals are simple in theory, but as a leader trying to navigate these systems into the culture of an organisation, it will take time to implement and discipline to upkeep. In environments that are struggling to find effectiveness, a large-scale overhaul will be required to re-establish a foundation that incorporates these methods.

Liam Adcock • January 25, 2025