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Articles
Leadership in a Geographically Dispersed Workplace
by Dave Brookmire
October 2006
How does one practice great leadership skills in a
workplace that is increasingly geographically
fragmented, where our primary means of
communication is electronic, and face time is a
commodity? Today’s “flat” workplace offers great
opportunities for innovative leaders; it also presents
unique challenges.
A geographically fragmented organization can still be
a culturally cohesive and unified organization; in fact,
it must be. Every day we read about national and
multi-national corporate success stories: The Home
Depot, Wal-Mart, Rare Hospitality, and AirTran, to
name a few. Each of these companies has worked to
maintain and nurture its corporate culture through
excellent leadership. Even during their most
strenuous growth periods, culture and mission were
never left to chance.
Technology allows leaders to capitalize on the time-
value of their leadership performance. When a
company is growing, whether organically or through
mergers and acquisitions, the leader of the expanding
organization is simultaneously challenged to grow the
value of his or her leadership performance. By
expanding the scope and quality of the leadership
along with the scope and quality of the organization,
the leader has the opportunity to achieve even
better returns on leadership performance in the
future.
The leadership skills that serve people well
in a wired and widespread workplace are not so
different from those of traditional leaders. The leader
who can communicate powerfully and prolifically,
build relationships, inspire and motivate others, and
foster collaboration in a geographically dispersed
organization is what Zenger & Folkman discovered
distinguished good leaders from extraordinary leaders.
More and more of today’s leaders are finding
themselves in charge of an expanding and dispersed
workplace. Here are some the lessons we have
learned from them over the years.
- Practice equitable information sharing.
Geographic distance is no excuse for equipping some
of your employees with better or timelier information
than others. “If you want the people in Germany to
feel left out, deny them access to the information
that you provided to others in Canada,” said says
Barbara Jones, vice president leadership development
for Corporate Performance Strategies.
- Identify
your information delivery
systems
(Intranets, blogs, e-newsletters, video
conferences,
email blasts, etc).
- Find out who is tapping into these
systems and
how.
- If there are groups who are not
accessing a
particular tool, find out why.
- Determine whether some of your
conduits for information sharing are inherently more
or less effective than others. Bring the inadequate
ones up to par.
- Get together. We are creatures of habit.
Make meetings a habit in your organization. Standing
meetings are the impetus for information sharing. The
Home Depot has made a practice of Monday morning
meetings during which the top executives from
various regions talk about business priorities. Without
a regular, mandatory meeting, these dispersed
leaders would never gather as a team. Create a
communication framework that includes weekly or
biweekly calls with senior management from all of
your markets.
- Leaders should be seen and heard.
Leaders must spend quality face-time in their
markets. Leadership is enabled and strengthened –
but rarely established – through technology. A
videoconference is never as impactful as meeting
face-to-face. That said, remote meetings are a
necessity in dispersed organizations. Virtual
leadership is exponentially more effective when it is
supported by periodic, in-person meetings. AirTran
Airways CEO Joseph Leonard refers to his employees
as “crew members,” even those who don't work on
the planes. Leonard makes a habit getting plenty of
face-time with his employees – a practice that
authenticates his leadership and reinforces his
message.
- Make your message relevant and viral.
Successful leaders of dispersed organizations are
tireless advocates of a compelling vision. They make
their vision relevant to everyone in the organization
by continually showing employees how their individual
performance contributes to the realization of that
vision. Every individual should have a clear line-of-
sight from his vantage point to the realization of your
vision. “Walk into an organization and ask
anybody ‘where is this company going, and how does
your job contribute to that,’” said Jones. “If the
person in the U.K. gives you the same answer as the
person in the U.S., then you are successful.”
Links:
Harvard Business School – Working
Knowledge for Business
Leaders - “Geographically-Co-located Subgroups in
Globally Dispersed Teams: A Test of the Faultline
Hypothesis”
The Future of Work – Resources
Hindustan
Times - “Face-to-Face Management”
Fortune magazine - “How telecommuters stay
connected.”
The Globe and
Mail - Close encounters of the faceless
kind
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