How do you Develop Long-Distance Leaders?

As we become more accustomed to remote and hybrid work, it can feel less novel and more of the norm. That doesn’t mean it comes naturally to people. How do organizations and people in Learning & Development help grow leadership skills that translate to the new way we work?

As we said in the first edition of The Long-Distance Leader and amplified in the new updated version, there are no silver bullets to building this capability, but there are some questions you can ask yourself and your leadership to determine a path forward.

Here are some of the questions you must know the answers to in order to create a leadership development plan:

• What kind of company do you want to be? Does your current culture support that vision? Having a clear picture of how a remote workforce fits into the future you want to create is important. Your remote or hybrid situation has probably changed and will continue to evolve. You must keep coming back to this question, as the answer changes over time.
• What behaviors do you expect your leaders to exhibit? What skill gaps exist? Odds are that you expect leaders to act like, well like leaders, regardless of where their people work. Traditional leadership skills like communication, delegation and coaching are as important as ever. But the new world of work adds nuances to those skills. Can you communicate in an email or text message so that people feel included and informed. Do you coach people over Zoom as effectively as you do in your office? Find out what skills are needed, and how remote or hybrid work impacts those skills.
• What is your plan for developing and supporting your Long-Distance Leaders? Will the Organization support remote team members? Too often, there isn’t a plan to support the new way of working except to “add a course,” or send people to a training class without context and a clear purpose for those attending.

Certainly training (we can help with that!) is part of the answer. So is creating context and systems in your performance management process that encourage learning and addressing the specific needs of remote leaders.

Creating great long-distance leaders is going to take time and support throughout the entire company.