Section Two:Models That Matter

Chapter 4 The Remote Leadership Model

Rule 4: Use technology as a tool, not as a barrier or an excuse.

All the tools, techniques, and technology in the world are nothing without the head, heart, and hands to use them wisely, kindly, and mindfully.

—Rasheed Ogunlaru, speaker and coach

Alan has been leading successfully for a long time. When the company allowed some team members to work from home and then changed the org chart so he had some folks in the Mobile plant reporting to him, neither he nor his boss thought much about it. He knew all the players and they knew him, he knew the work, and he knew how to lead. When IT gave him access to some new technology, he thought, “I don’t need that, I have all the tools I need, it’s working fine.”

So, if being a leader in a remote environment isn’t really all that different, why does it feel lonelier, more stressful, and just plain harder?

After a lot of thought and discussion with remote leaders, we came up with a simple model that conveys a big message. We call it the Remote Leadership Model (figure 5).

The model depicts three interworking gears that work together to propel remote work forward. The largest gear is “Leadership & Management,” which is the work you were hired to do. The second smaller but critical gear is the “Tools & Technology” you must use in order to make the work happen at distance. Finally, the smallest gear is “Skill & Impact”—the ability to use those tools well. Although it is the smallest gear, you can’t ignore it or dismiss its importance.

Figure 5 The Remote Leadership Model

Let’s break it down further.

The Leadership and Management Gear

This gear reminds us that our job as leaders—the leadership and management behaviors we are expected to exhibit—are the same as they’ve ever been. What we’re supposed to do (the expectations) haven’t changed much since the project manager at the pyramids plied his craft. Regardless of whether our people share a cube farm or are scattered around the globe, these are the things expected of leaders.

In his book Remarkable Leadership, Kevin outlined thirteen competencies that apply to all leaders. To improve in your effectiveness, you must continue to develop in these competency areas:

1. Remarkable leaders learn continually.

2. Remarkable leaders champion change.

3. Remarkable leaders communicate powerfully.

4. Remarkable leaders build relationships.

5. Remarkable leaders develop others.

6. Remarkable leaders focus on customers.

7. Remarkable leaders influence with impact.

8. Remarkable leaders think and act innovatively.

9. Remarkable leaders value collaboration and teamwork.

10. Remarkable leaders solve problems and make decisions.

11. Remarkable leaders take responsibility and are accountable.

12. Remarkable leaders manage projects and processes successfully.

13. Remarkable leaders set goals and support goal achievement.

You can quibble about the list, or whether something does or doesn’t belong there, or how to label the competencies, but you can’t argue that working remotely makes any of those behaviors less important. Furthermore, leading remotely doesn’t add much to this rather imposing menu. The job of leading remains the same whether you’re all together or not. The work needs to be done, whether people are outside your office door or in Guam.

How well you’ve demonstrated your abilities in those areas is another question for another time, but until recently we’ve only ever had to really perform our duties in a centuries-old way: together in the same place, and pretty much face-to-face. This is no longer the case.

The difference lies in the other two gears. Smaller doesn’t mean insignificant; the old expression “little hinges swing big doors” is as true now as it’s ever been.

The Tools and Technology Gear

This intermediary gear is perhaps the most important difference when leading remotely. Leaders are expected to exhibit all the leadership behaviors we’ve mentioned, and do it using tools and technology with which they might not be comfortable. That’s a bigger deal than you might think.

If you’re an American and have ever driven in England, you’ve probably risked your life proving this point. At first blush, driving a car is driving a car: four wheels, steering wheel, combustion engine, windshield in the front—it’s more than 90 percent the same as driving in your own neighborhood. The only differences are that the steering wheel is on the other side of the car and you drive on the other side of the road.

These “small differences” have led to an awful lot of stressful drives and near misses. And it’s not just driving. Even walking is impacted by the direction of traffic. The city of London has painted arrows on the streets that basically say, “Hey Stupid Tourist, the bus is coming from the other way—watch where you step.” It’s a small change that can mean the difference between a carefree vacation and a visit to the emergency room.

How does technology impact your leadership behavior? You likely feel those differences every time you want to ask a complex question but settle for sending an email, or when you know you should have a critical coaching session and make do having it on the telephone (where you can’t see the happy gleam in the other person’s eye or the panicked look on their face). Making a presentation via webinar technology isn’t nearly as rewarding as being at the front of an assembled crowd, gaining energy through the audience’s laughter and applause.

This gear begs three important questions.

What tools do you have at your disposal to help get the job done?

Are you using the right tool for the right job?

Do you rely too much on the tools you’re comfortable with?

As with so much in life, using the wrong tool for the job can be frustrating and diminish your effectiveness. That matters because you have a demanding job as a leader, with a lot of things that need to go right. You don’t want to be “driving on the wrong side of the road.” That certainly makes things more complicated, but that’s not the only problem.

The Skill and Impact Gear

The third (and smallest) gear is the simplest concept, the easiest one to maintain, yet often the one that can cause the biggest problems. Having a clear idea of what you should do is important, and choosing the appropriate tool for that job is critical. But if you can’t use the tool you’ve chosen effectively, all the hard work and good intentions in the world won’t get the job done.

Here are some important statistics:

Software developers are aware of a rule of thumb that applies to nearly every software tool ever built—80 percent of people use 20 percent of the features Having a robust tool like WebEx or Skype for Business doesn’t help you overcome the challenges of remote communication if you don’t use the features available to you.

Two MIT Sloan-Cap Gemini Studies show that leaders who use and are comfortable with technology are rated consistently higher in other leadership areas than those who don’t. Yet a huge number—a big majority— don’t feel comfortable or confident using the tools themselves.

In numerous off-the-record, private conversations, both the people who work for well-known software platforms and their resellers have told us the same story. Two-thirds or more of the people who get licenses for web-meeting tools never receive any training or coaching, apart from online tutorials, which many people find extremely unsatisfactory. As one reseller put it, “It’s like, ‘Here’s your________license. Try not to hurt someone.’”

Not only do we have tools with which we’re unfamiliar, we’re not using them well. That can undermine our credibility and effectiveness. This is true for anyone trying to communicate today, but for leaders there are additional challenges:

Leaders are usually more senior in age and/or experience to those they lead and therefore might be more resistant to adopting new technology, or at least they are uncomfortable with it at first.

Even if you want to adopt technology, odds are you are behind the learning curve compared to those you work with/lead.

The paradox is that if you don’t use the tools, you look out of touch and incompetent, but you don’t adopt the technology because you are afraid of looking incompetent and uncomfortable.

The Remote Leadership Model shows that long-distance leadership is a difficult job where it’s hard to excel. You are being asked to do your job in ways you’ve never done it before, using tools you aren’t confident in your ability to succeed with. The lesson of the Remote Leadership Model is simple: the job of leading—what we do—hasn’t changed nearly as much as how we do it.

For the rest of the book, we’ll be constantly drawing distinctions between how leading has always been done in the past with how you need to think and act in today’s workplace, because that’s what’s really changed for us all.