From a Captain to a Lighthouse: 4 Unique Challenges & Triumphs for Remote Work Leaders

You often hear people say that being an executive is a lot like being the captain of a ship. But, what if your crew is scattered around the world? What if your ship’s sails are in the United States, your ship’s hull is in Brazil, and your ship’s anchor tends to move around a lot throughout eastern Europe? Suddenly, this metaphor makes absolutely no sense.

Remote workers have become a large part of the overall workforce, and remote work as a practice is now a standard reality for almost every industry. As a matter of fact, even the lowest estimates from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests that nearly 30% of the country’s workforce is working remotely. Meanwhile, the worldwide percentage of hybrid work is much the same.

Simply put, this isn’t a trend. This is a new way of doing business. While it might be difficult for some executives to imagine, there are many business leaders whose workforce is entirely remote. Consequently, it is impossible for them to be an active “captain” for every member of their crew. Instead, these highly successful “remote leaders” think of themselves as a lighthouse.

A lighthouse has a very unique challenge—guiding ships from afar with limited visibility and communication. Still, a lighthouse also has a very unique set of tools. Simple beacon markers. Unique light patterns. Rotating lenses. Foghorns and sirens. Morse code radio signals. Each of these tools helps a lighthouse lead ships effectively over a long distance.

April 10th is Global Work from Home Day, and it’s a time to celebrate the flexibility, productivity, and work-life balance made possible by remote work. For executives, it’s a day to recognize the challenges and triumphs of being a lighthouse to a truly remote workforce.

I’ve been consulting with successful executives for decades, and many of them are now transitioning—or have already transitioned—to a more remote way of doing things. Such transitions are not without obstacles, but those obstacles are not without solutions. In my experience, these are the four inevitable challenges of being a remote leader, as well as the joys to be found in overcoming them.

1. Building trust and connection without shared office space.
   Perhaps the greatest joy of remote work is a guaranteed diversity of thought and lifestyle. However, this can also be one of the greatest challenges. Without the crutch of shared office space and face-to-face interactions—aka the “water cooler” and “conference room meetings” of the 1990s and early 2000s—it can be much more difficult to build trust between coworkers. And trust is one of the biggest factors influencing productivity at the workplace, most especially when that workplace only exists online.

   Building trust within a remote team takes consistent communication, complete transparency, and appropriate empathy for every situation. Successful remote leaders employ video calls and daily check-ins at every opportunity in order to humanize and normalize online interactions. These leaders have “open-door” policies when it comes to the virtual world, meaning they are routinely available on chat platforms and offering robust feedback through digital repositories.

2. Maintaining accountability when flexible work becomes the norm. 
   Flexibility is one of the most important components of a remote workforce. After all, it is the option to work remotely—not any mandate—that keeps workers satisfied with their jobs. Over 60% of employees are considering leaving their jobs in the next six months. When surveyed about what would prevent them from doing so, the top reasons given were a pay raise (38%) and the ability to work remotely (34%). At the same time, 57% of respondents who already work from home said they would “absolutely” look for a new job if they received a return-to-office mandate.

   Such freedom can be empowering. With clear goals and active accountability, remote work can yield amazing results. However, in the absence of clearcut objectives, a remote-only workplace will see its productivity take a nosedive. This is why remote leaders need to establish a daily routine of emphatically communicating measurable goals to every team member. Digital project management tools can serve as the cornerstone of such communication, and these programs are just as capable at motivating in-office workers to stay on task.

3. Encouraging collaboration and inclusion over long distances.
   In much the same way that remote work can be a danger to accountability, it can also be a danger to collaboration and inclusion. By its very nature, remote work can unintentionally isolate and exclude team members. For starters, remote work creates physical distance. That said, it also suffers from operational distance, meaning the tools, policies, and procedures that might prevent collaboration, as well as affinity distance, meaning the quality of connections actually forged between workers. As a leader, if you hope to maintain healthy collaboration and inclusion in such an environment, you have to be intentional about it.

   Fortunately, there are small steps you can take everyday in order to create high-quality connections at work. Ultimately, the goal is to incorporate more trust, more engagement, more enabling, and more play into workplace relationships, but what does that look like? Encourage diverse voices by rotating team meeting facilitators. Organize brainstorming sessions and social events. Or, if your team is decidedly global, make room for synchronous collaboration and commiseration.

4. Supporting workers’ mental health when faced with burnout and isolation.
   As already mentioned, remote work can promote loneliness and isolation. Not surprisingly, lonely workers are 1.5 times more likely to be disengaged and 4.5 times more likely to struggle with productivity.  Simultaneously, a work-from-home setup can also blur the lines between work life and home life, which can result in greater rates of employee burnout. And according to the American Psychological Association, employee burnout has a serious impact on absenteeism, worker health, and overall efficiency.

What does this mean? That mental health is always a priority when leading a remote workforce.

All successful executives should prioritize the mental health of their workers, but remote team leaders must do so with even greater intention. Normalize conversations about mental health across digital platforms. Encourage regular breaks and emphasize the importance of rest and well-being. Beyond that, provide access to nearby wellness programs and resources, including fitness memberships and routine therapy. While these action items are just as applicable to in-office executives, they are much more difficult to execute—and therefore much more likely to become neglected—when working with a remote team.

Written by Dr. Sam Adeyemi.
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