Five Reasons, Leadership, is Hurting Remote Leaders by Not Training How To Lead

By: Stephanie Diana Eubank

When I started studying remote work and remote leadership in my master’s and now in my doctorate program and finishing my dissertation on the topic, I did not think I was taking on such a taboo topic.  Even post-COVID remote work is a hot-button topic that many in leadership roles are speaking out in media against the move towards remote work.  In this blog and my research, I have identified several causes for leadership to dislike remote work even though it benefits corporations greatly.  Benefits such as higher productivity, as reported by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, lower overhead fees, lower utility fees, lower real estate fees, and a wider hiring pool by being able to hire all over the country. 

With all this to consider, we must ask, aside from a bit of training in leadership in general to middle managers, why are companies trying to treat remote work like it is the same as being in the office?

Remote work was never a workplace design to mirror the office.  It was designed to give more freedom of creativity and cost-saving opportunities for companies and employees.  So, why are leaders trying to manage remote work as if people are in the office?  Well, there are a few reasons why:

1. Public schools are designed to mirror the structure of old-school factories in timing, seating, rules, etc. As such, this form of leadership mirrored by teachers is what many middle managers and leaders mirror and attribute as a standard business structure.  However, education isn’t cut and dry anymore; not everyone is productive or creative in those environments, and the same happens in business.
2. As a business culture, we are still idealizing old organizational cultures of “All go and no quit” and similar attitudes which foster burnout, workplace PTSD, and Workplace Violence.  These attitudes praise those who stay later than others to get more work done when needing that additional time shows time management issues across the board, not good work ethic. Several research studies found that constant overtime contributes to these toxic work environment issues and hurts productivity and accuracy goals.  Basically, the more work you do without rest, the lower the quality of work produced.
3. There is also the middle management feeling they must watch nonstop to see if anyone is in their mind taking advantage of the company in completing the work.  I speak from experience and research when I say both show that looking for issues that’s all leadership will find at the expense of ignoring those working hard and doing the work.  If leadership learns to let go and trust their team, even in a remote modality, the focus shifts to managing the work and letting the team do its job and leadership to do the same. 
4. Middle management also has often never experienced anything but in-person work, so physically, not seeing the team in the office feels like a loss of control and a loss of influence.  It is hard for leaders to build trust with their team and know their skills if they do not build skills to manage a remote team vs. an in-person team.  This is probably why many middle managers push back on the idea of remote.  The new method scares them.
5. Because middle management is not often taught how to lead but instead is promoted as one of the high performers, these managers are at a deficit. They don’t know how to motivate other than toxic leadership methods shown in TV, movies, and a few self-help books.  Where these methods may have worked in person in the past many workers are no longer willing to tolerate the behavior, so motivating a team has to be done by learning how to be vulnerable and human as a leader and gaining faith from your team.  I often quote the line from Disney’s Remember the Titans, “Attitudes reflect leadership”.  This means we must teach our leadership teams to let go and trust their team so that the work performance can speak for itself rather than trying to police one’s team.

If you would like to learn more how you can train your teams to better balance the changes to leadership that the remote work revolution is creating for the future of work, please check out my social media and my consulting practice for ways to help develop more comfort levels for remote work.  Remember sharing is caring, so like and subscribe.  As always remember remote is here to stay.

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