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We have the pleasure to present to you Mark Fritz – Expert on Virtual Leadership and Leading People at a Distance. And we are going to discuss with him what are the key character skills of a successful leader .

Mark Fritz is the MD and Founder of Procedor Limited, a company focused on enabling leaders to become even more successful. He is an associate of Ashridge College in the UK, co-teaching Leading Complex Teams; and leads an MBA Seminar on Virtual Leadership at HEC in France. He also leads MBA Workshops on Virtual Leadership at the Instituto de Empresa Business School in Spain.

1. In your vast international experience in leadership roles with Kodak and now mentoring business leaders across the world, what have you discovered to be the one common trend in virtual organisations?

The trend we are seeing that it is constantly growing. We now have a global economy, and large companies are now placing their operations and resources where it makes sense both financially and for the longer-term. Many of these companies have established their virtual organisations, and have basically leveraged existing long-term relationships that they had across the countries in their organisations. However, when people retire or move on, they are finding it difficult to maintain the operations with the new people who don’t have those key relationships in place. These companies have been using these relationships to compensate for the lack of strong processes in place.

To make virtual organisations successful year after year, it is important to always be working on building and growing both the key relationships across organisation and the key processes. Any weaknesses in processes need to be supported by stronger relationships, and vice versa.

2. What are the key character skills of a successful leader who leads people from a distance?

I often do a talk on Professionalism, and use the equation that Character + Skills = Professionalism. You could really replace the word “Professionalism” with “Success”, and you have the key character traits and skills for a successful virtual leader. I cover six character and six skills traits in my talk. However, I will share the two key traits for each here.

The two key character traits are attitude and discipline. The leader is the role model for the behaviours in their people, and the collection of the behaviours create the culture. A great attitude that’s visible in all the meetings/calls can encourage the right behaviours in others. People with great attitudes will work with each other better, and thus will share more information across the organisation. Discipline is key, as it drives the behaviour that everyone needs to do what’s “necessary” (keeping commitments), especially when the work is for someone that’s at a distance.

The two key skills traits are Focus and Follow-up. One of the key problems in all virtual organisations is keeping people working on the “right” things. The leader doesn’t see them every day, and making sure they are working on the right things is all about how the organisation’s focus is communicated (and regularly). Follow-up is also key, and especially for a virtual organisation. Remember, to the people in a virtual organisation, Follow-up = “This is important”.

3. Are the factors underpinning success in a virtual leadership environment different from those in a traditional one?

You could say that the key factors underpinning the success in a virtual leadership environment are the same for a traditional one. However, in a virtual leadership environment, the leader doesn’t have the ability to compensate for a lack of leadership/manager skills. He or she cannot control the environment and fire-fight their way to success when people are not close around them.

The key is getting people to take “ownership” for their responsibilities. A successful virtual leader needs to drive an outcomes based leadership style and constantly discuss and delegate outcomes to their people. You cannot really control activities from a distance. However, you can create ownership for the key outcomes, and follow-up/coach your people in delivering them. Therefore, the key success factor is having an “outcomes” versus an activities focus.

4. How do you ensure effective communication, given that the people in a virtual team never or rarely meet in person?

Communications technology now allows us to communicate and share information easily with people located anywhere in the world. The capability is there. However, the important thing is to get everyone to “use” it. Successful virtual leaders understand this well, and work on establishing key communications behaviours and processes.

First, it is about getting people to know each other. Key face-to-face meetings are always helpful if they can be done, but there are also many other ways for people (who will never meet) to learn more about each other. For example, I have had project teams who would never meet, invest their first call together in just sharing information about each other (both work and outside work).

Second, it is important to drive the right behaviours to share information. There are too many people in today’s companies who still believe that “information is power”, and keep holding it to themselves. Information flow drives a successful virtual organisation.

5. What stops virtual leaders from delegating more than what they do today?

Many leaders today don’t delegate as much as they could due to a need for control. If a leader keeps the ownership with them, then they feel more in control. When leading a virtual organisation, this style might get things done in the short-term, but does nothing to grow the people, and thus the organisation.

Successful virtual leaders understand that delegating is the fastest way to grow their people. They focus on delegating outcomes that their people can “own”, and then follow-up/coach them to successfully deliver those outcomes.

You could say that a leader who delegates is in more control, as he or she is getting their people to take more “ownership” for the key deliverables of the organisation.

6. How do you assess performance in a virtual team organisation?

First, the most important thing is to make the performance of the organisation very visible to everyone. The greatest pressure to get things done is not the leader/employee pressure, but “peer” pressure. The more visible the performance metrics and information is available, the more “peer” pressure you drive for results, as well as the more information sharing you encourage across the organisation.

The performance measurements need to cover the results the organisation is committed to deliver. However, every organisation needs to be successful year after year, and the best virtual leaders also measure their leaders on improvement projects as well. These projects are always focused on building the key relationships and processes that enable the organisation to constantly improve the operations.

7. What companies can you give as examples of “best practice” in terms of virtual leadership?

There are many companies that have established a “best practice” in the different aspects of leading virtual organisations. However, most still struggle with getting both the leadership and the relationships/processes in place. I think one of the best enablers a company created for virtual leadership is from GE. Jack Welch drove the “boundaryless” focus that encouraged the sharing of ideas and best practices. All successful virtual leaders know, knowledge or information only gathers power when shared.

Contact Mark Fritz:

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