In today’s digital world, many companies have made the shift to a virtual workplace or a remote workforce, which allows employees to work from home at least one day a week. However, leaders need to ensure that they have the essential skills to lead and collaborate from a distance according to Rick Lepsinger in his article, The Top 7 Virtual Leadership Competencies.
Here are 5 indispensable virtual leadership skills to efficiently and effectively manage a remote workforce or virtual team.
- Communication
As a virtual leader you need to stay connected with your team members to build trust and loyalty. Appropriate technology and a dedicated meeting space are necessary to conduct productive virtual meetings and brainstorming sessions with your virtual team.
- Flexibility
As a virtual leader you must understand and acknowledge the differences of every team member’s culture, location and time zone to be able to establish strong and efficient teamwork and collaboration.
- Supervision
As a virtual team leader you need to closely monitor the work in progress and follow up with your virtual team at key milestones. You must set reasonable deadlines and hold each member accountable to deliver work assignments and tasks in a timely manner.
- Decision Making
Misunderstanding or confusion between you and your virtual team may arise. So as a virtual leader you need to identify the cause of conflict or confusion and resolve it by using an approach that is most relevant for a given situation.
- Resourcefulness
As a virtual leader you must be resourceful and creative to bring in new ideas and concepts to your team. Being an innovative virtual leader helps them overcome uncertainty and doubt about change, and keep your team engaged, prepared and motivated in spite of rapid or sudden change.
These are some of the essential skills you need to develop in order to be a competent virtual leader. Likewise, a dedicated office space is necessary for your virtual team to stay connected and engaged. Thus, if you are looking for workspace solutions for your remote team in Denver, YourOffice Denver offers you a wide choice of office and workspace solutions: virtual office space Denver, meeting room access, and coworking office space Denver. You’ll have access to a complete array of office support and concierge services as well as state-of-the-art business technology.
How do you keep your remote workforce engaged and productive? We’d be glad to hear your thoughts. You can also see us on Twitter.