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Leadership

Acting as Group Leader for a Remote Project

Although commentators have long predicted a shift towards remote working, the Covid-19 pandemic has certainly driven the point home. As we currently stand, the question is not if the work-space will digitalize but to what extent. Most consulting firms have managed the transition to remote working relatively easily, and some have even realised that they can maintain the same quality of services with reduced office costs. An instructive business model for consulting firms might be that of Eden McCallum, which exclusively works with freelance consultants who the firm hires only for the duration of a specific project.

Under such circumstances, learning how to adapt to the online work-environment is essential. The following article will highlight a few aspects of leadership, which will gain increased significance in the context of remote working.

Most business-coaches and leadership advisors tend to gloss over the simple need to keep things organised and transparent.  The advice seems self-evident, yet it is one of the the most common problems that young leaders face at the early stages of their career. What differentiates competent leadership from dysfunctional chaos is reliable management and administration. Project leaders must make sure that online meetings take place according to a clear, consensual schedule and that all members of the team are aware of what they are expected to do. This task is more complicated during remote working due to the miscommunication and misunderstandings that can creep in, and which would normally be ironed out in the course of casual work-place conversations.

An issue of special concern for remote projects is the choice of a communications platform. Many opt for using conventional messaging apps, such as Whatsapp or Facebook Messenger for sharing information within the team, since nowadays nearly everyone is familiar with these applications. However, in most cases, walking the extra mile and creating a professional Slack account for the purpose of the project pays off in the long run. Although it might be convenient to use the same social media accounts for personal and professional ends, this can seriously disrupt your work-leisure integrity. Social media apps can distract and devour our attention when we are supposed to be focusing on our work, and, in parallel, work can infiltrate into our private life outside of our designated working hours. Slack’s sleeping function is a useful tool to make sure that we will not receive business-related messages until we wish to commit time to our work again.

A commonly resurfacing problem with remote working is that meetings easily become monotone and boring. An obvious response to this issue is to keep meetings concise and the discussions straight-to-the-point, but such a strategy rarely bears the expected results. Although the lack of personal presence surely has an effect on our attention-span, boring meetings are indicative of the greater underlying issue of insufficient constructive conflict. What really makes a meeting monotone is a lack of any real exchange of ideas or productive debate about conflicting propositions. This stagnation is often caused by an absence of personal trust, as Patrick M. Lencioni reminds us in his book, the Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Building up trust is indispensable for creating an inclusive atmosphere, which allows for consultants to open up, challenge each other, and be vulnerable by admitting when they are wrong. The avoidance of criticism and a reluctance to take initiative are symptoms of fear of showing vulnerability to our peers. Therefore, it is the utmost responsibility of the project leader in an online setting to cultivate trust among members, which can best be done in a gamified manner. A great example for this is online escape rooms [pdf], which enable group-members to explore team dynamics and get to know each other in a non-competitive environment.

Finally, a competent project leader won’t let the online working format compromise the accountability of any team member. Remote working makes it is easier to get away with negligence by referring to technical issues, avoiding confrontation by not showing up to meetings, and by not responding to messages. Such a situation is a nightmare for any leader, since we can never know if our team is actually facing technical challenges, thus calling their credibility into question can be highly insulting. A way around this issue is to offer multiple back-up options in case of any unexpected turbulence. This makes false excuses more difficult. You might offer your personal telephone number so that consultants can let you know if they cannot complete a task for any reason, even outside working hours. If someone misses a group meeting, you should arrange a one-on-one meeting with that person as soon as possible. In this way, the person concerned is placed under even greater scrutiny, incentivising them to attend group meetings instead.

In conclusion, the prevalence of remote working in the realm of consultancy is definitely going to increase, and this will have major implications for leadership. The online environment requires project leaders to be more organised, pay extra attention to cultivating a healthy team-dynamic, and to be more vigilant about tracking the progress of each team member.

Bence Borbély is a Hungarian first-year History and Politics student at the University of Cambridge whose professional fields of interest are management consultancy, public policy-making, politics and international relations.

Image: Pexels

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