By Chuck Chapman, Content Strategy Coordinator One of the foundations of being a remote leader is effective online communication. As we've well documented on this site and in The Long-Distance Leader, this is one of the principle leadership challenges for those heading up remote teams. Simply put, communicating remotely just isn't the same as communicating in co-located … [Read more...]
History Shows Why Succession Planning on Remote Teams Matters
Here’s a question I bet you’ve never been asked before: What would happen to your team’s work if the boss suddenly wound up dead in a pickle barrel? This is kind of a morbid (okay, downright weird) question, but on remote teams we seldom have a good plan in place for who does what if something major happens. And there’s a historical lesson here for why succession planning is … [Read more...]
Is 2019 the Year You Plan for Remote Work?
Can you believe it’s 2019 already? For some of us, that was a year we only thought possible in science fiction movies; but ready or not, it’s here. For many of the clients we’ve talked to, it’s finally time to quit dealing with remote work as something aside from their normal planning, and to make it a standard part of how things get done in their companies. The truth is if … [Read more...]
Good Coaching Matters, No Matter Where Your Team Is
When we talk to managers around the world about what they feel they could improve on, the one area they all say they could improve on is “coaching.” It’s hard to do and doesn’t come naturally to many of us. So, it seems a bit like piling-on to point out that the odds are pretty good you do a better job coaching the people you share a workplace with than you do with the ones who … [Read more...]
Loneliness and the Remote Employee
A recent survey by Cigna found that nearly half of Americans report sometimes or always feeling lonely or left out. One in four Americans (27 percent) rarely or never feel as though there are people who really understand them, while about half of the surveyed population have meaningful in person social interactions. Two in five Americans sometimes or always feel that their … [Read more...]