Managing and Inspiring People Virtually

These challenging times have seen a complete shift in the way we work and for many, working remotely will continue to be a key feature of the ‘new normal’. Managers and team leaders will still have the same issues regarding managing and inspiring their teams in order to get cohesion and harmony.

At the beginning of March, along with everyone else, my ‘normal’ changed overnight – firstly, all training courses were cancelled, and then I was faced with an empty diary!  Not great when you’re self-employed.  After about 2 months, regular clients who were still ‘business as usual’, realised their leadership challenges remained and that their managers still needed access to training – albeit in a different way.

The traditional style of transactional management involves keeping an eye on people, clocking in and out, managing by tasks and telling people what to do.  At the absolutely worst, this can be experienced by others as controlling and even micro-managing and I’ve never come across anyone who is inspired by managers micro-managing!  Obviously there are situations or work environments where a transactional management style has to prevail, but clearly, when managing people remotely, the ability to tightly oversee their output is removed.

In March for organisations still operational, they were immediately forced to have employees working from home – balancing the additional responsibilities of parents schooling their children, dealing with the technical and operational challenges which remote working brings, and ensuring managers were leading people effectively.  This leads to the need for a more transformational leadership style.

This was the inspiration for my ‘Managing & Inspiring People Virtually’ course.

With brand new material, inspired by the learning I undertook in March during the early days of lockdown, I packed the course with great content and handy hints.  I’m not a huge fan of the ‘one-way webinar’ where delegates sometimes just use the chat function to natter to colleagues or at worst, switch off completely and they’re doing something else!  I’m therefore delivering to small groups with a maximum of 6 people over half a day to ensure that the time is filled with discussion and interactivity – just like it would be in the training room. This means that everyone goes away with plenty to think about and how they might implement what they have learnt into their leadership.

Content includes learning from Insights Discovery, styles of leadership, how you behave under pressure, leading change, modeling great behaviours, managing by outcomes, being proactive v busy and finally, tips on motivating others.

I have now delivered the courses to senior managers in Motorola and a mixed course with delegates from locally based Sitemark, Worcestershire County Council, Antiva Professional Services, Herefordshire Council and Keyturn Training.

So thank you lockdown – you’ve been a real inspiration and here’s to the ‘new normal’!

Contact me today and find out how I can help your organisation to inspire your management team.