Leading a team, remotely too

Knowing how to coordinate and motivate a group of people makes the difference between a project that reaches the end and one that frays. You don’t lead a team with the project plan: you lead it with example, listening and the ability to create the conditions for everyone to work well.

The PM leads by staying one step ahead on problems and one step back on credit.

The challenges of every team

They are always the same, in an agency as in a company: getting people with different languages to communicate; meeting deadlines without stifling creativity; making the most of differences instead of suffering them; protecting concentration; handling criticism and conflict. None is solved once and for all. They are managed, every day.

The basics

• The right team, in the right roles. Complementary skills, and each task to whoever does it best. Roles and responsibilities that are clear, written down, known to everyone.
• A climate of trust. People must be able to voice doubts, concerns and ideas without fear of consequences. It is the condition for everything else.
• Open communication. The information people need to work reaches everyone; decisions are explained.
• Delegation and responsibility. Handing over a task means handing over its choices too, within clear boundaries.
• Regular feedback, not only when something goes wrong. In private when it is critical, in public when it is recognition.
• Celebrating successes, small ones too. And making room for growth: training, new responsibilities, new challenges.

Authority, not authoritarianism

Authority is what allows a PM to earn the respect of the team and the client. It has nothing to do with arrogance or rank. And the question every PM asks sooner or later is: how do I earn the respect of people who know more than I do in their own field?

• By knowing enough. You don’t need to be an expert in everything, but you must understand the technical problems, the client’s needs, the market dynamics. And know your own craft well.
• By listening, accepting criticism and suggestions for improvement.
• By being consistent and transparent: explaining the reasons for your choices, telling the truth even when it is uncomfortable, admitting your mistakes.
• By deciding, even when it is hard, and in time.
• By taking responsibility: for your own choices, and for the team’s mistakes in front of the client. If it goes well, the credit goes to the team; if it goes badly, whoever leads it answers for it.
• By recognising merit, always, and publicly.
• By setting the example, starting with keeping to time and budget.

When the environment turns toxic

A toxic culture is not a personality trait of the boss: it is a project risk. The signs are recognisable. Eighty- or ninety-hour weeks presented as normal. Ideas imposed from above (“I say, you do”) and, when they fail, the blame dumped on the team. Personal comments on looks, age, background. The doubts of the people doing the work ignored on principle.

A PM can’t always change a company’s culture. But they can name the problem, protect the team as far as they are able, and refuse to be the channel for that culture.

The remote team

Remote work brings concrete advantages: flexibility, a better balance between work and life, lower costs, the chance to work with people wherever they are. And it brings equally concrete challenges: communication gets thinner, it is harder to tell how people are really doing, team culture risks dissolving.

What works:

• Clear, measurable objectives. At a distance you lead by results, not by presence. Checking who is online says nothing about how the work is going.
• One channel for each thing, agreed together: where you discuss, where you decide, where documents live, what is urgent and how to flag it.
• Everything in writing, and findable. Decisions, documents, versions: in one place, accessible to all.
• Regular but few meetings, with an agenda. A short, frequent one to align; a longer, less frequent one to think things through.
• Explicit hours and time zones: when each person can be reached, and when not.
• Room for the informal. Chats by the coffee machine don’t happen on their own: they have to be created, online too.
• Attention to wellbeing. Isolation and the inability to switch off are the most serious risks of remote work. Asking people how they are, and listening to the answer, is part of the job.
• Careful onboarding for newcomers: at a distance, nobody learns by watching colleagues.

Tools (messaging platforms, project management software, shared document spaces) are useful, but they don’t replace any of these habits. A team that doesn’t trust itself doesn’t become united through an app.