Leading from a distance - personal learnings

Remote work is hardly surprising for anyone - especially in the area I work in, IT. Software developers, testers, designers have worked remotely for many years now - and it is often claimed to be "the future of the workplace".

However, remote management is not as often talked about.

It is not as straightforward indeed - as a manager, one has few pre-packaged specific tasks to fulfill. As a leader, one shall rather... well, lead. But what is leadership besides communicating to the people, both internally and externally?

For the past seven months I have been located several thousands kilometers away from both my colleagues as well as clients. The business department I am responsible for has more than 30 people. I am visiting our office and our clients on average every 1,5 months. Otherwise, I have on average 3-5 videoconference calls every day (and an impressive amount of e-mails and text chats).

So, here are some reflections so far:

What is good about remote management:

• It pulls you out of your familiar environment, it gives different room for thoughts and innovative ideas
• It provides a push for greater efficiency - being stripped away of usual working methods, you are pushed to think differently
• Whenever you come to office, it feels like a special occasion both for you and your colleagues
• Less disturbance and more room for concentration (like with any remote work)

What is difficult about remote management:

• No social source of motivation (not having your excellent colleagues nearby)
• No possibility to have spontaneous (but meaningful) lunches or talks in the coffee corner
• If there are videoconferences with several people and someone is showing something on the screen or whiteboard, it is difficult to see it
• (this is by far the most difficult) If the Internet connection is slow - or even down - the bad video/audio quality can ruin the whole experience of the calls or videoconferences - and be highly inefficient
• It requires strong discipline (like any remote work)

Additionally, I live in Central Asia, while the office and clients are 3-5 hours "behind" me in Central / Eastern European time zone.

Upsides of working remotely 3-5 hours ahead of the time zones of your colleagues / clients:

• Allows "slow" start of the day - provides flexibility to use this time for sports (e.g. swimming in my case), reading interesting articles or books, playing with kids
• Allows to start working day before everyone else and focus on tasks requiring concentration
• Allows to do personal duties (like shopping, hairdresser etc) in the mornings when there is least demand and fewest other customers

Downsides of being several hours ahead of your colleagues / clients:

• Sometimes need to take meetings during late hours
• Need to operate in 2-3 time zones simultaneously - sometimes creates mental errors as of at which time I have which appointment

Preconditions of remote management - it is only possible if:

• The teams and people in general are, to a very large degree, self-going and autonomous 
• There is a very strong middle-management level (in my case, team leads) 
• There are frequent video conference calls with the key people 
• Need physical presence time-to-time (once every 1-1,5 months in my experience is a good frequency)

All in all, what is my evaluation of this experience so far?

 At times challenging, but very stimulating and useful if not lasting for too long.

I am happy to work in and have a strong impact on an organisation allowing me such management experiments. :)

The teacher as a leader

I am in the middle of my first semester as a business school teacher. After seven classes conducted, one large assignment graded, numerous meetings, emails and phone calls with the students, partners and guest lecturers, after reading and preparing material several evenings every week during past few months I feel that I have learned tremendously lot.

One of the most important a-ha moments has been - which I always suspected but never felt that well on my own skin before - that the good teacher really needs to be a good leader. The set of skills required for both roles is undoubtedly very similar. Well, the teacher is the leader of his/her course. But what I refer to here is a good teacher.

I am surely just on my way towards qualifying as a good teacher. But I am extremely thankful for the leadership experience my involvement in AIESEC has given to me. I can't imagine how hard it would be for me to bare the responsibility of teaching without having led several teams and organisations first. Here are but some of the lessons about leadership skills in teaching I have learnt so far:

Lesson #1: There are different styles of teaching, just like there are different styles of leadership. One can choose to be autocratic teacher and exercise one's authority by scaring students off by unforeseen exercises and unexpected difficult questions. Many leaders exercise their authority mostly by fear (of being laid off, of being given too much work and so on). One can choose to be democratic and involving instead - both as a teacher and as a leader.

Lesson #2: Presentation skills are crucial both in teaching as well as in leadership. I have seen too many times professors - and managers - who talk long without noticing (or without being willing to notice?) that their audience is mentally not with them. (I have surely fallen into this trap some times too). However, both students in the class as well as people in the organisations appreciate clear and motivating communication on the topics relevant for them.

Lesson #3: Involving is important in both teaching as well as leadership. It seems to me that many teachers and organisation leaders who have mastered the oral skills think that motivating words alone can move the mountains. However, both the learning curve and effectiveness of work becomes higher when students/members of organisations have a stake in the process. Discussion, group-solving, team-circles - all that works as great methods both in the classroom as well as in the offices.

Lesson #4: Everyone appreciates good feedback. I have given detailed feedback to all groups of students who submitted their assignments to me. After that, several of them wrote in the assessment sheets that I collect in the end of each class that it was the very first time someone at school has given them a real feedback (not just the grade) on the effort they made. There are far too many employees in the business world who get feedback on their work just too seldom too.

Lesson #5: Structured approach and skilful guidance are crucial in both business classes as well as in the business organisations. My students appreciated when I managed to be clear and well-organised, while they got confused when I did not provide good enough guidelines in the process. Every team expects clarity and structure from its leader too.

I am sure that this list will be filled up with more lessons like that. These are just very few initial thoughts I have now. All I want is that all these lessons will help me to become (and constantly challenge me as) both a good teacher and a good leader.