1. Knows their role has changed from a switch (yes or no) to an amplifier. The traditional leader's primary responsibility is to focus his people on the right things and give them feedback on how they are doing. Implicit in this is the leader switching on or off activities on a daily basis of the people who work for him/her. But how can you do this when you aren't there to see what that person is doing?
The role of the virtual leader can not be that of someone micromanaging what is going on. Instead the great virtual leader becomes an amplifier, gathering information on what is going on by the individual team members and amplifying it to the entire team.
This new role is that of a coach combined with a cheerleader. Amplifying good news to keep morale up and amplifying how close we are to making our goals to allow the individual team members to focus themselves on the right work and give themselves feedback on how they are doing compared to the rest of the team.
2. Focuses on the human side of interacting with his people. This is the most overlooked aspect of virtual leadership. It is so easy to get wrapped up in only focusing on the task when people are not located close by. Virtual meetings tend to lose the human element and leaders frequently treat team members who are distant differently than they treat team members who are on site with them.
What we know is that great virtual leaders make the human connection a priority in their communications, their meetings and their travels
3. Has regularly scheduled interactions with all of his direct reports. This is a priority of the great virtual leader. Out of sight should never translate into out of mind for virtual teams. A virtual leader needs to have a communication plan and in this plan a schedule for meeting with each of his/her team members.
It needs to be in writing so you don't forget, but a great leader also knows this regularly scheduled meeting doesn't have to be the same for everyone on the team. New members may require more time at a greater frequency than does a long time friend or acquaintance.
4. Regularly leads celebrations for good work done by people at all locations. This is not simply a reemphasis of cheerleading activity mention in point 1. The great virtual leader is very sensitive to make sure that s/he is not celebrating only one location or is never celebrating another.
In fact, if the leader is not getting quality performance in all his/her locations, they aren't doing their job. If they aren't celebrating the excellence performance in all their locations, they are also not doing their job.
5. Uses precious interactive time to interact. The great virtual leaders realize how important interactive time is. This includes face to face visits, regularly scheduled individual meetings and virtual team meetings.
The great virtual leader does not turn these precious interactive times into information dumps. Interactive time is when the great leader finds out what is going on not just in the project, but in the team members life.
S/he realized that virtual team meetings are the only time a virtual team can really act as a team and do something together. For this reason the great virtual team leader looks to actually accomplishing work in these meetings and is not willing to accept people "multitasking."
6. Communicates well at a distance. When we do our onSITE programs, the number one item people want to get out of the training is improved virtual communication. The great virtual leader creates with the team a communication plan to accomplish this.
If you want to communicate well at a distance you need a plan which includes understanding the right media to use for various messages. You need to have norms in place that makes the messages clear and helpful. You need to respond to one another in a way that reinforces trust rather than breaks trust. And you need to make a plan that respects everyone time as that is the most precious commodity we have today in business.
