Use meetings to show poise and presence

Executive leadership is imperative for the success of any organisation. The leaders bring to bear their leadership skills, including communication, persuasion, encouragement, and empathy. They provide air cover for their teams to innovate and produce. But working remotely through digital technologies presents unique challenges.

When everyone worked from the office, informal sessions between staff brought people together and broke generational, cultural, gender, and supervisor-subordinate barriers.

Before the pandemic visited us, staff could meet at the coffee or water dispenser and catch up on anything they wished to talk about — families, birthdays, vacations, hobbies, and so on.

With the absence of in-person meetings owing to remote working, leaders use online tools to keep their teams working harmoniously, feeling supported and appreciated.

Online meetings are profound and powerful opportunities for the executive team to elevate their presence. Meeting management speaks volumes about leadership. If not well managed, meetings can rob organisations of precious time and erode staff morale. That's why leaders should underscore the need to respect staff time in the way they organise and carry themselves during meetings.

Team leaders need to find tools and adopt behaviour that helps them cast executive presence, poise, and cadence. On video calls, for example, leaders must appear poised, confident, and in control.

Digital communication channels

The background on the speaker's video calls need not distract the message. Pictures or art work that can pique the staff's curiosity and distract them from listening to their leaders should be blurred or removed.

All meetings need to have an agenda. They should start and end on time. Also, every meeting should clearly describe the desired result. From time to time, the leadership team needs to review recurring meetings and see whether they are necessary or need to be eliminated, repurposed, or frequency reduced.

Executives should lead by example, not by monopolising meetings, but instead, facilitating them. They should support and encourage the team, especially the shy individuals, to speak. One way to do this is to nurture an environment where people feel safe to speak even on matters that would be deemed sensitive. Leaders themselves need to lead by example; they should be graceful enough to admit when they are at fault so that others can feel safe to do the same.

The digital communication platforms used by an organisation can also be a deterrent for many. 

Organisations need to explore digital communication channels that staff find easy to use. Those who have challenges using such technologies need to be trained to avoid unnecessary stress or embarrassment. If, for example, the platform in use is a bandwidth hog, some staff will find it challenging to connect and join the meetings.

Online meetings are real estate for managers and leaders to nurture a cohesive and productive organisation. However, if left unchecked, they are a place for marking time with no results.

Mr Wambugu is an Informatician. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @Samwambugu2