This blog is part of our Remote Leadership Series. It was written anonymously by a leader currently participating in the Lead From Anywhere programme. The reflections below are shared with permission.
By Week 5 of Lead From Anywhere, something was starting to click for me.
In a remote or hybrid team, I’m realising that good intentions are not enough. If roles are blurry, if feedback is vague, or if KPIs are overly prescriptive, trust can erode.
Here are five learnings that have changed my approach to leadership.
1. Responsibilities Drift. Leaders Have to Reset Them.
One of the biggest insights for me was how easily ownership can change without anyone formally acknowledging it. Someone might start off responsible for a project and somehow priorities shift. So someone else steps in to help or a deadline moves. All of a sudden, two people think the other owns it and we’re left with confusion.
Instead of working on assumptions, conversations with other learners on the Lead From Anywhere cohort showed me the importance of using RACI: Who is Responsible? Accountable? Consulted? Informed?
The person ultimately accountable should make sure roles and clear and, if any confusion arises, bring the relevant people together for a focused 1 to 1 alignment as soon as possible.
Sometimes simple clarification is all that’s needed. Sometimes the work needs to be reassigned. Either way, ambiguity gets replaced with agreement.
My takeaway: Remote teams survive on explicit clarity, not assumptions.
2. “Passive Aggressive” communication
In distributed teams, most communication is written. That means there is recorded evidence of conversations and decisions (or ambiguity!).
If a message is interpreted as passive aggressive, for example, it can be analysed: What was written? What was the intent? Is there a pattern? Is this possibly a time zone issue or context gap?
Passive aggression is subjective. Written communication gives you something objective to work with, so as to understand context and interpersonal dynamics.
I learned from other leaders on the course how they have actively called out poor communication on their own teams. Likewise, it is a leaders’ responsibility to celebrate what is working. When updates are clear, when tone is professional but urgent, when decisions are well-documented – these can be held up as indications of a strong culture.
My takeaway: Don’t wait until communication falls apart. Celebrate when it’s done well!
3. Trust Needs Structure.
When conflict appears in remote teams, it can feel magnified. The process we worked through in Week 4 was simple but reassuring:
- Clarify roles and expectations.
- Address concerns directly and privately.
- Align on forward actions.
- Escalate to HR if necessary.
Escalation is not dramatic. It is part of a structure. Building team trust is less about emotional speeches and more about predictable, consistent processes and boundaries.
On the group call, we also explored how small operational signals affect trust. For example, video norms in meetings are a big part of distributed workplace culture. It is not about forcing cameras on. It is about creating shared awareness of what’s expected. One learner discussed using a simple traffic light for video meetings:
- Video off could signal red, meaning an employee is not comfortable sharing their video (treated as an exception to the norm, with an expectation to be green next time)
- Video on and engaged, green.
Another learner explained how they rotated meeting chairs, which meant that different colleagues took the lead on regular calls. It can be a challenge when the same people are represented in regular conversations and the same people are invisible and unheard. This meant that different people spoke and, over time, more employees were represented on the calls speakers.
My takeaway: Ownership spreads when airtime spreads.
4. Teams Need Three Things.
One of my favourite frameworks from the programme was this:
Teams need:
- WHY: What is our shared purpose?
- SYSTEMS: How do we operate?
- SUPPORT: What culture are we reinforcing?
When something feels off, it usually maps back to one of these. If performance dips, is the WHY clear? If collaboration stalls, are the SYSTEMS defined? If tension grows, is SUPPORT visible? It simplified leadership for me.
Remote and hybrid operations expose weak systems quickly. Whereas an experienced office-based manager might have ways to solving problems when everyone is working in the same room, the same manager may struggle a great deal to lead a distributed team. If roles are unclear, hybrid can exacerbate the issue. If communication lacks structure, poor remote working systems can increase confusion. If performance is managed top down, things can fall through gaps in a distributed environment.
But when you put the right structures in place, people take ownership and, as a manager, you stop carrying everything yourself.
My takeaway: Remote leadership is less about control and more about optimal design.
5. Performance Conversations Should Be talking “through” the work, not talking “down” to a report.
This was a useful insight for me. Previously, in monthly reviews, I have told a team member where they went wrong. I would focus on the targets they missed. I would explain what needed to improve.
I thought that was management. Now, I have started letting them walk me through their month.
They outline:
- What worked
- What did not
- Where they fell short
- What they would do differently
My role is to ask questions and to talk through the process with them. This way, we can problem-solve together. And – crucially – it gives them more accountability and more ownership over how they reach their goals.
For example, if a recruitment KPI is 4 new starts, that North Star goal is clear. The overall outcome is non negotiable. But how they get there is up to them. Instead of micromanaging the steps, I can coach the strategy.
It feels completely different. Accountability increases. Ownership increases. Defensiveness decreases. I have realised that micro-management is often a confidence issue on the manager’s side.
My takeaway: I have changed my approach from seeking control to focusing on clarity.
If you are leading an Irish SME right now and you feel stretched, reactive or unsure how to handle some of these dynamics, I can honestly say this course gives you practical tools you can use immediately.
It did for me.
