Remote Leadership Is Not Weakening Leaders it is Evolving Leaders.

By Stephanie Diana Eubank

My specialty is in Operational and Organizational management with a focused research on Workforce and Leadership Development in remote work and remote leadership.  It sounds like a mouth full, I agree.  But it is very timely as we move forward into the future of work. Which is Remote. However, there is one concept that I hear a lot from colleagues and companies I consult for.  And that is a concern that remote leadership requires leaders to be meeker and milder instead of touch leaders. 

This is another false narrative perpetuated by toxic leaders.  Toxic leadership chooses to lead with fear as they mistake it for respect. The problem is most toxic leaders don’t know that they are toxic. As such, these leaders hear authentic leadership and interpret this as the right to talk without a filter.  Which is not authentic leadership.

Authentic leadership is leading with your most human self.  This allows leaders to have the bandwidth to listen to their teams and show appreciation by looking to more creative ways to meet goals, and load balancing as needed instead of pushing till people break.  If we keep up this toxic pace, we will continue to see these high levels of burnout and stress in the workforce as a whole ruin the economy.

This is why remote leadership has to evolve into more of a teacher and support role, which requires listening and truly hearing our teams.  It truly is a call back to traditional purist leadership concepts like the business concept of your team being your greatest asset. Also, it calls to Kaizen’s business philosophy of bottom-up methodology of everyone having a voice and showing that they, too, are important to the company’s growth.

Toxic leaders don’t enjoy change as it means looking within and seeing how each person effectively contributes to the problem and how to become the solution.  Remote work also shines an uncomfortable light on toxic leaders. This is fine because it leaves room for new types of leaders to take charge and fall into the future of work.  As always, the future of work is remote.  And Remote is here to stay.