If you are anything like me, you’ve been on more Zoom calls in the past two weeks than in the previous two years. COVID-19 and the social distancing we are all living through has changed the way we work with each other. It has been quite a learning curve for me as I figure out how to keep my staff team of nine people connected, motivated, and encouraged in their work in this season.
In my research I found a few articles and practices that have helped me transition from leading in person to leading from a distance. I hope you find them helpful, too, whether you’re leading a team at work, a small group at church, a PTA committee, or a neighborhood association meeting.
- Harvard Business Review gives 12 tips about what it takes to run a great virtual meeting.
- Fast Company has six ways to be an empathetic leader during the coronavirus pandemic.
- Boxed.com’s CEO Chieh Huang gives a Ted Talk on the benefits of not being a micromanager.
- Patrick Lencioni, author of Death by Meeting, offers a model for frequency and type of team meetings that has helped my team stay connected and focused while working remote.
- And for those of you with kids at home, here are some practical, helpful tips for working from home with a full house.
Of course, the best guidance for leading and working with a team during any season comes from God’s Word. In these past few weeks, the verse that continues to come to my mind is Philippians 2:3–4:
3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. 4 Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others. — Philippians 2:3–4 (CSB)
Our goal in our Zoom meetings, Slack messages, texts, and phone calls should be to glorify God and serve others. As you consider what others are thinking and feeling, you will naturally adjust your leadership to serve them well, no matter what season of life you and I find ourselves in.
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