A leadership style can make or break a company. Just as much as good, strong, and kind leadership can benefit your organization, poor leadership can cause real material damage.

What qualifies as poor leadership? Any leadership practice that hinders employee independence, company growth, and a necessary flow of information within the organization can be characterized as poor. A leader who insists on micromanagement and ignores employee innovation suggestions is as detrimental to the company as one who is intransparent, unavailable, and doesn’t clearly state company direction.

One inadequate leader can cause average costs to your organization of $126,000 yearly. Poor leadership also leads to an overall drop in company productivity that costs around $4,723 in lost wages per year.

If this goes on for too long, your employees start leaving the company and your recruiting and onboarding costs rise. Companies in America alone suffer costs of around $630 billion per year due to this sort of issue.

You can avoid these losses by adjusting your leadership style to the remote environment and the needs of your remote teams.

This article helps you familiarize yourself with major leadership styles, showing you how to monitor employees working from home. It also touches upon the most reliable strategies that can help you adapt to the needs of your organization and lead your team to success.

Effective Leadership Styles

Leading a remote team comes with a unique set of challenges. To help your team thrive, you need to facilitate and foster clear communication, transparency, and flexibility. Here are several leadership styles that can fit into the culture of your remote organization:

Laissez-Faire Leadership

Laissez-faire leadership grants team members autonomy to manage their tasks. This management style is based on your trust in your employees’ expertise and avoiding micromanagement. It is ideal for teams composed of skilled, self-motivated individuals. To ensure progress without interfering, you can schedule regular check-ins.

Democratic Leadership

Democratic leadership revolves around team-based decisions. A democratic leader encourages the participation of all team members in the decision-making process. They strive to foster creativity and thinking outside the box. In remote settings, they often rely on virtual polls and brainstorming sessions, and insist on transparent and regular communication.

Transformational Leadership

Transformational leaders focus on driving innovation by inspiring and motivating the team. They strive to build strong relationships and encourage growth through regular check-ins and virtual team-building activities. They emphasize the value of team member contributions and continuously try to provide constructive feedback.

Servant Leadership

Servant leadership is appropriate for remote environments where it’s important to prioritize team members’ needs. Leaders who stick to this leadership style strive to actively listen, provide resources, and remove obstacles that affect productivity. This leadership style also highlights the importance of trust, collaboration, and acknowledgment for employee motivation.

Autocratic Leadership

Autocratic leadership entails making swift decisions without relying on the team’s observations. Autocratic leaders endeavor to communicate in a clear and consistent manner to maximize team efficiency. Although it reduces flexibility, this style ensures efficiency in high-pressure environments that involve numerous protocols.

Strategies for Managing Remote Teams

Regardless of the leadership style you decide to adopt, there are some elementary strategies that can help you and your team thrive in the remote work environment:

1. Monitoring Remote Employees’ Work

One major challenge that all remote leaders face is gathering full info about their employees’ workday activities and holding them accountable.

Monitoring software enables employers to gain insight into employee engagement and productivity without disruptive micromanagement practices. The key is explaining to employees how this tool helps both the business and them.

2. Fostering Team Communication

Dedicated and functional communication and collaboration tools are vital for remote teams. Make sure you establish guidelines for their use as this helps align team members with organizational goals, fosters a sense of community, and enhances engagement.

Regular virtual check-ins and team-building activities further improve collaboration and ensure consistent, effective communication among remote workers.

3. Organizing Team-Building Activities

Maintaining company culture in remote teams is often difficult, but it’s also vital for maintaining employee engagement and loyalty. To build a strong team culture, organize interactions that combat isolation, foster camaraderie, and create a sense of belonging and accountability. Good examples are weekly town halls, regular team meetings, and virtual coffee breaks.

4. Establish Precise Goals

Clear expectations ensure that remote team members remain productive, focused on the right tasks, and aligned with the company objectives. This can help them focus on meeting individual performance goals, which, in turn, drives organizational success.

5. Encourage Work-Life Balance

Supporting and prioritizing employee mental health is among the major preconditions for a remote team’s success. Encourage breaks, respect off-hours, and promote work-life balance to prevent burnout. In addition, flexible work hours, wellness programs, and in-house psychologists support a healthy work environment, ensuring employee well-being and productivity.

6. Organizing Regular Check-Ins

Strive to provide constructive feedback frequently, including both positive sides of a person’s contribution, as well as the aspects that need improvement. Praising achievements publicly and addressing issues privately further reinforces an encouraging and supportive environment. It helps employees identify areas for improvement while reducing stress.

7. Nurturing a Trusting Relationship with Employees

As a leader, you set the tone of your relationship with your team and every individual team member. Use this position to initiate an atmosphere of mutual trust in your company.

This often requires trusting them right off the bat and giving them time to justify your trust. Even if someone’s performance is plummeting, give them the benefit of the doubt. Track their performance, analyze what is the roadblock that they encountered, and look for the signs of burnout. Talk to them and offer support in the form that they feel would help them get better results.

Make it a company rule that anyone who needs some time offline to focus is free to turn off notifications.

Respecting employees’ private time is also an important point to have in mind. Don’t contact your team late in the evening and encourage them to use their vacation time fully.

With the right mix of these strategies and the thorough knowledge of your team, you can fine-tune your leadership style to perfectly fit your teams and reach maximum effect on your organization’s productivity.