6 Effective Virtual Communication Tips for Leaders
By now, most professionals today have gotten familiar with some kind of remote engagement —whether your team meeting, a community partner planning session, or even a virtual doctor appointment. Especially for those of us who take part in virtual meetings often, we’ve learned to navigate starting a Zoom or Teams meeting while we’re topping off our coffee or grabbing a snack.
Many of us, in an effort to combat zoom fatigue, now attend most meetings with our camera off. However, in today's fast-evolving work environment, mastering effective virtual communication is more essential to leadership, and even to the role of a professional than ever before.
Being effective at virtual communication can help build your online leadership presence, uphold virtual team engagement, productivity, and team cohesion. In this article, we'll dive into the virtual communication challenges for leaders and actionable communication tips.
Six Ways Leaders Can Facilitate Effective Virtual Communication
Navigating virtual meetings can be challenging. However, these tips for leading remote teams can facilitate effective virtual communication.
1. Keep camera on for more impactful interaction —within reason.
Encourage attendees to keep cameras on during meetings. This improves communication effectiveness and fosters a sense of engagement.
As humans, we interpret information through various filters. Our brain is wired to protect us. Think of our early ancestors paying attention to evading predators.
One of the primary ways we gather information is through visual information processing. Eye contact improves connection—faster responses, better face memorization, and increased likeability and attractiveness.
When someone speaks, we subconsciously take in their facial cues, body language, and speaking tempo. All of these combined can help us understand the whole meaning of the information. Without these visual cues, we piece together cues to complete the picture.
Imagine offering feedback over a phone call and hearing a sharp intake of breath. Your brain will try to interpret this sound. Did a cat jump on the keyboard, did your staff spill their coffee, or were they truly surprised at your feedback?
When virtual communication needs more clarity, misunderstandings increase. A 2018 study of 403 executives by The Economist found that 44% attribute project delays or failures to miscommunication. Furthermore, 18% cited losses in sales, with one-third of those valued between USD100,000 and USD999,990.
When our brains try to fill in the gaps, our interpretation becomes our 'truth' and responds accordingly. Therefore, showing facial cues eliminates guesswork and improves understanding.
However, while cameras are essential for important meetings, you must also recognize that only some meetings are equally important. 'Zoom fatigue' is an increasingly prevalent issue among remote workers.
Consecutive virtual meetings, particularly camera-on meetings, can be draining. The combination of staring eyes, quiet audiences, uncertainty, and slight delays deviates from everyday face-to-face communication. We recommend talking about this openly, and designating certain meetings 'camera-off' ones.
2. Avoid distractions during meetings
A common pitfall during meetings is zoning out by multitasking. LucidSpark's research reveals that 44% of remote workers spend 25% of virtual meetings distracted.
As the leader, you set the tone and influence your team members' behaviors. So avoid the urge to check your email, another browser tab, or your phone during a meeting. Stay present as you would in an in-person meeting.
While these meetings are essential, consider other communication formats to combat Zoom fatigue.
3. Transition to shorter 'Walking Meetings'
Transition one-on-one video calls to old-school phone calls. Get your team (and yourself) up from your desk and encourage them to walk while talking. If you can do it outdoors, even better.
According to Richard Louv's "The Nature Principle," spending 10 to 15 minutes outdoors with nature can improve psychological health.
4. Allow for flexibility
Our brain experiences and catalogs the data as we interact with our environment. A conscious mind's processing capacity is limited to 120 bits per second. Speaking to one person requires around 60 bits per second of processing power. Considering this makes it understandable why listening to two people simultaneously is challenging.
Paying attention to two or more people speaking is just one way data is vying for our attention. There's your open email or messaging app, multiple browser tabs, and the noise of your family or neighbors, among other distractions.
It takes work to focus, especially in the current work environment. Remember, some may need a dedicated distraction-free home office. As a leader, communicate that you understand their situation. You can also support this and boost engagement by allowing flexibility and autonomy.
Finally, reevaluate your expectations and processes to align with the demands of virtual leadership. Communicate changes before implementing them and make your employees feel heard.
5. Foster an engaging environment
Practice active listening and encourage openness to create a safe space for employees. This will allow them to share their input and feedback without fear of judgment.
Practical communication skills for leaders aren't about more than just giving clear instructions or goals. It's also about building relationships through stories and meaningful interactions, an important aspect emphasized in frontline leadership training.
Take the time to know your team and tailor communication approaches to connect with each of them.
6. Set clear expectations
Leaders of virtual teams must establish clear guidelines for working hours, expected response times, and communication channels. They must also establish protocols for urgency escalation, especially with geographically dispersed teams.
This solves time zone challenges and simplifies meeting coordination.
Virtual Communication Is Here to Stay
While the COVID-19 pandemic may have accelerated the shift to remote meetings, it’s not changing any time soon. In the last 2 years, talent retention has surfaced as one of the most critical issues that CEOs face, prompting 83% to prioritize greater flexibility and 62% to focus on training leaders to empower and engage employees.
While the KPMG 2023 CEO Outlook shows that 64% anticipate a complete return to onsite work within the next three years, virtual meetings remain an integral part of everyday work life. Remote employees now engage in 60% more virtual meetings than just a few years ago.
This demands agile team interactions regardless of whether they're on-site, at home, or traveling. Managers and CEOs must refine and adapt their leadership communication skills to virtual settings to navigate remote team communication challenges, underscoring the importance of ongoing corporate leadership training.
The Most Common Virtual Communication Challenges
If your leaders use virtual meeting tools but find it hard to build the cohesion and alignment of in-person meetings, they’re not alone! These are the contributing factors:
Absence of non-verbal cues and body language
One of the main challenges in virtual communication is that we can’t see the extensive non-verbal cues and body language that we (often unconsciously) pick up on when speaking face to face. This lack of human to human connection can foster feelings of isolation and disconnection among team members. While video calls can be a powerful tool for efficiency, bringing your team together in person a few times a year can build a foundation of trust and community that allows virtual meetings to be effective the rest of the year.
Difficulty creating team cohesion
In every group, there are some team members who may need encouragement contributing to group discussions. Virtual meetings often make this situation worse, as it can be difficult to know when to break into the conversation without talking over someone. This can hamper in-the-moment brainstorming, collaboration and productivity. In addition, it’s all too easy for employees to multi-task when on a virtual call, leading to more opportunities for missed communication and a slow-down of progress.
The Importance of Effective Virtual Leadership
Organizations aiming to recover from the economic aftermath of COVID-19 must build a robust company culture. One in five Americans leaves their jobs of over five years because of poor company culture. This causes a ripple effect on the organization, as employee turnover can be costly and lower productivity.
Building a solid virtual leadership presence is vital in fostering a healthy virtual environment and engaging remote teams. Leaders must learn effective virtual communication, as clarity about the organization's mission, goals, and action plans influences company culture, highlighting the significance of senior leadership training in mastering these skills.
Additionally, virtual leadership requires remote collaboration strategies, building trust, and upholding team morale.
Adapting Your Leadership Style for the Digital Realm
Managers' engagement with their employees and colleagues cultivates a positive work culture. Leaders must be creative in experimenting with different management styles to communicate effectively with their teams.
For instance, autocratic management styles can reduce employee productivity. On the other hand, adopting participative management allows team members to contribute meaningfully. This proves to be one of the most effective virtual collaboration techniques and can strengthen employer-employee relationships even while remote.
Transformative leaders lead purposefully and drive positive change per their company's vision. They inspire team members and steer the team toward realizing its goals by leading with empathy, creativity, and courage, attributes that can be further developed through participation in an executive leadership program online.
Empathy is crucial in effective virtual leadership by fostering trust, building relationships, and generating better output. According to 2020 BusinesSolver research, 82% of CEOs recognize the financial impact of empathy. Furthermore, 90% of employees, HR professionals, and CEOs have valued the importance of empathy since 2017.
Practicing empathy requires vital emotional intelligence. This involves recognizing emotions in others, understanding how these emotions are affecting them, and being aware of your feelings and their effects.
In virtual communication, showing empathy involves intentionally creating connection points that mimic in-person interactions. This means going beyond project discussions to personal check-ins, monitoring their overall well-being, and offering genuine care.
Most importantly, pair your empathy with integrity. Don't pay lip service. Follow your promises of support, especially during difficult times in your employees' lives. This can profoundly impact them and show genuine support beyond mere words.
Final Thoughts
Effective virtual communication is an imperative skill for leaders. At Leadership Impact Strategies, we offer tailored virtual leadership and communication training to equip your managers with best practices. Please work with us today and witness the lasting positive impact on your company's culture, productivity, and employee engagement.
ABOUT LEADERSHIP IMPACT STRATEGIES
LIS builds proven leadership and team programs for discerning mid-market organizations who value building a collaborative, innovative culture and increasing company value by investing in their people. (‘Side effects’ of this approach include increased revenue growth, higher employee engagement, greater production and problem-solving, effective teams and reduced turnover rates.)
Our approach focuses on building deep-seated leadership capabilities within leaders, equipping them with the necessary knowledge and practical insights to lead in the future of work. To do this, we address both critical team leadership strategies as well as the building blocks of self-leadership to strengthen personal effectiveness.
Programs include Leadership Fundamentals, Leading Effective Teams, emerging leader programs, virtual leadership training, executive coaching, consulting and custom-built programs. Using data, we consistently measure the metrics of our programs to ensure both immediate training results and identify a path for sustainable growth after the training event.
LIS and our team of highly experienced coaches and facilitators remain committed to building and delivering innovative, results-driven programs that continue to drive positive change.
Information: https://www.leadershipimpactstrategies.com/