The Parzival Story & Issues of Remote leadership

The Remote Challenge

With the advent of global markets and the drive by large corporations to co-ordinate their
activities whilst acknowledging local conditions - ‘think global, act local’, there is increasing
pressure on managers to lead teams spread across national boundaries and cultures.

The fundamental principles of leadership remain unchanged whether you are leading a
team with whom you are in daily personal contact or a team separated by oceans and time
zones. The special challenge of leading dispersed teams, however, requires a more careful
consideration of the quality and quantity of communication between the leader and team
members. In addition, the additional complexity of organisation structures and processes
associated with remotely managed organisations requires special attention to be given to
the potential interference factors posed by inconsistencies in policies, protocols, routines,
structures and systems.

Lenin said “Quantity has a quality all of its own”, and this surely applies to the problems that
sheer distance and the multiplicity of cultures, languages and procedures bring to remote
management. Furthermore, the personal pressures placed on remote leaders to be available
to their teams as a result of the need to be available for longer periods during the working
day, and to travel more extensively, highlights the need for personal resilience as a key
leadership attribute. This challenges leaders to be available without being present, to lead
remotely whilst remaining approachable.

Remote leadership is not new in the world of commerce. In the 18 th century the great
merchant houses of Europe despatched their ships to all corners of the globe, knowing that
their trading captains had a high degree of discretion over where and with whom they
traded, and on what terms. What is different now, of course, is the availability of
communication technologies that offer the opportunity for managers to exert some form of
control.

The Loose-Tight Paradox

The ‘think global, act local’ approach highlights a paradox in remote leadership: how can the
leader exert sufficient control without overwhelming local initiative? For leaders and
managers in any organisation these are pressing issues when confronted by conditions of
growing complexity, dynamic and unpredictable change and global interconnectedness – all
of which have to be managed by individuals operating at distance, often with teams they
have never met or worked with before. Crisis and change open up opportunities which are
easily missed by focusing on the threat.

The answer lies in one of the core attributes of effective leadership – the quality of
relationship. This in turn drives the quality of communication and determines the quantity
of communication required, by creating opportunities for meaningful delegation and
empowerment. Military organisations have over many years developed the principle of
‘Mission Command’ to overcome the inevitable breakdown in communication and co-

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 The Parzival Story & Issues of Remote leadership

ordination that armies experience under wartime conditions, what the nineteenth century
military theorist von Clausewitz called ‘the fog of war’.

On the assumption that the ‘fog’ will inhibit intelligence gathering, and that decisions will be
highly time-sensitive on the field of battle, military leaders are trained to reach decisions
based on sub-optimal information (the ’70-per-cent solution’). Secondly, the principles of
mission command require the commander to inform his subordinates of their strategic
objectives whilst leaving them free to achieve them in their own way according to
conditions they encounter on the ground. In management-speak we might call this ‘context-
driven leadership’.

The quality of relationship in military organisations is driven by a number of factors, the

most important of which are:

 The strength of organisational cultures at both local and higher levels (e.g service
and regimental traditions stretching back generations);
 The strength of meaning and purpose in those organisations, giving rise to clear,
coherent and robust value-systems;
 The large amount of time spent by teams training together and building loyal and
committed personal relationships – the ratio between training and operational time
in the armed forces is almost directly inverse to the ration experienced by
commercial and most other public sector organisations.

All organisations can learn from these hard-won lessons acquired over many generations of
leadership.

Dealing with the Remote Challenge

How do organisations seeking to manage their operations in such conditions exercise

control without stifling initiative?

The immediate implications of this for managers leading dispersed teams are:

1. Get to know your team, in person and early on. There is no substitute for face-to-
face contact, and time invested at the start of a project will pay off later. This is an
opportunity to build trust by disclosing something of your own hopes and fears, and
encouraging your team to do likewise, and to clear the air on assumptions arising
from cultural, linguistic or cognitive differences that can cause havoc later.
2. Make sure you know what your team are capable of – their experience, skills,
knowledge and working preferences, and where their development areas are.
Equally, make sure your team know how you like to work. Everyone should know
how to get the best out of each other, and more importantly how not to elicit the
worst!
3. Greater clarity and discipline is required at all stages of the team formation and
project implementation process – trust building, visioning, objective-setting, role
clarification, performance measurement and so on.

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 The Parzival Story & Issues of Remote leadership

4. Establish clear lines of communication and the protocols the team will use to
operate them. A useful ‘hierarchy of intimacy’ in communications would sequence
first, then telephone, then voice messaging, then e-mail, and finally texting 1:1
contact, with internet video-conferencing also to be considered. Does the mode of
communication you choose fit the nature of discussion or interaction required?
5. Part of the protocols for communication should include a mutual commitment to
regular contact, and maintenance of discipline in this area.
6. If there is a mix of local and distant team members, it is easy to assume that the
dispersed team members are experiencing the same issues as those closest to you.
There is a danger that the dispersed team will feel isolated from any local culture
that develops.
7. Clarity of messages given by the leader must be high. The leader should monitor
‘signal traffic’ (volume, nature, tone of communications) to try and identify the weak
signals that indicate disaffection or hidden conflict.
8. Plan time for social interactions during personal visits. Ensure that dispersed
members of the team know that you are aware of what they are doing and that their
contribution is valued.
9. Try to avoid ‘over-inquiry’ driven by your own insecurity that arises from the
uncertainty of not being on hand to see things for yourself. This is where the build-
up of trust in relationships really pays off.
10. Finally, there is a greater premium on organisation, clarity and discipline for the
leader of dispersed teams, as remoteness reduces the scope for ‘playing it by ear’.
Make sure you are personally committed to give the role and the team the level of
organisation that it and they require.

The Bigger, Wider Picture

Once the relationships have been built, a team will be capable of synthesising a vision of the
future: what new era is approaching, and what will it take to be successful in it? Reflecting
on and exploring the implications behind this question are best done away from everyday
operational pressures, in an environment that encourages relaxation, creativity and
imagination. Sensing the future is an intuitive process which requires as much attention on
the inner state of the inquirer as on the outer condition of operating environment.

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