Leaders still making the same mistakes with remote teams

Source: HR Daily - subscription service (10.06.2025)

Too many employers are still trying to structure flexibility and remote work around their existing team organisation and leadership practices, when it should be the other way around, according to an advisor with 20 years' experience in the field.

Rushed, forced, ad hoc and experimental adoption of remote work during the pandemic left many employers and leaders "tarnished" by the experience, but the problem wasn't remote work itself, says remote work consultant Lisa George.

The inability to plan and restructure appropriately, coupled with a "massive leadership skills gap" meant the way many employers went about it was less than ideal; but by taking a different approach, employers – and employees – can expect different results.

Structures should be based on trust and enable flexibility, autonomy, and connection, George tells HR Daily. The biggest mistake she still sees is an unwillingness among leaders to trust their people, resulting in micromanagement and monitoring that breeds further distrust, making employees less likely to get the job done, not more.

Once you have that sense of someone not trusting you, then you generally don't perform at your best for them, and it really under undermines everything that teamwork is about.

Lisa George

"One of the other big mistakes is that people want to lead the same way remotely as they've led people in the office, because that's what they know," George says.

"However, when you're leading a team that isn't in the same vicinity or the same physical space as you, you need to lead with a very different approach and a very different level of intention in terms of connecting with people."

Identifying the connection points needed for leader-to-team and team-to-team communication, then ensuring the appropriate systems and technologies are enabling them, is a vital step. So is managing expectations, respecting people's core working hours and right to disconnect, and building trust by demonstrating it.

"Trust your people. You've engaged them for a reason. You engage them to do a job. Let them get on and do the job and trust that they're going to perform. Really communicate that you are trusting them and behave like you're trusting them," George says.

"That generally does encourage people to then behave in a trustworthy fashion."

Horizontal relationships are important too. "Give [team members] a sense of ownership of their work and provide a framework for them to work together.

"This might involve looking at restructuring your organisation or your teams into smaller 'pods'. The smaller the group, the more effectively it works."

George, who managed remote teams for many years as an occupational therapist before launching Remote Team Queen to advise others, uses Zoom meetings as a way of progressing work, but when it comes to fostering connections between team members, she prefers to avoid online meetings.

"There are other ways. We use things like a Facebook hub where we just drop thoughts and drop questions... We've got WhatsApp chats, we've got accountability buddies, we've got support triads, we've got mental health team leader relationships going on with staff."

She still uses Zoom for one-to-one check-ins, but says these are more about the person than the work. "I have other ways or means of talking about work through emails or other forums that I can contact them through. But when I actually talk to the person, and connect with them, [it's about] how they're tracking."

Questions might include: What are you struggling with? What are your pain points? What can I do to make your life easier? What's really enjoyable for you at work at the moment?

And whatever the meeting, it's always cameras on, she says. Employees can make their own decisions about their backgrounds, but George doesn't change or blur hers. "I'm deliberate in that because I want people to feel welcome into my space."

Other methods she advocates for building connection include monthly 'whine and cheese' sessions on Zoom, quarterly in-person training sessions, and company-funded lunches to celebrate end of financial year and other major calendar events.