Managing your team in these difficult and confusing times requires leaders to communicate effectively in ways that measures, motivates and inspires. Your team is looking to you for guidance here are seven ways to rally the troops (and they all start with R)
- Realistic – Be open and honest about the current complexities. It may be uncomfortable especially communicating when next steps are unclear or not decided, but honesty demonstrates respect.
- Real – Be your self, be vulnerable, we are all in this together.
- Rapid – you know we all need to be kept in the loop and that rumours fill a vacuum. So communicate with clarity about what you know now, and what you don’t it will stop people making up the rest.
- Responsive – Don’t wait to get back to people, don’t wait to communicate, be proactive and responsive.
- Repetitive – Just because you said it once doesn’t mean that the message landed. As an old boss once said to me “Tell them what you are going to tell them, Tell them the detail of what you want to tell them, and then Tell them what you told them!”. Three times and it’s likely to land.
- Resilient – take responsibility for maintaining and rebuilding relationships. When we are distant its more easy for misunderstandings so work to repair them.
- Reflective – We all need time to look at what we are doing well and not doing so well, make sure you carve out the time.
Key Takeaways
- There is no handbook for remotely managing a team through a pandemic
- The key is to be open and transparent, communicate frequently
- You need to make sure you are not just thinking about your people you also need to think about you – take time to reflect and to repair relationships when required.
Synopsis of an article from Inc. by Deborah Grayson Riegel Published, 17th August 2020 https://www.inc.com/deborah-grayson-riegel/seven-ways-to-rally-your-remote-team-in-confusing-times.html