CHAPTER TWO

Manager Archetypes

ONCE UPON A TIME, a 13th-century Persian poet and Sufi mystic, Rumi, wrote a poem about an elephant brought into a village. No one had ever seen an elephant. So, late at night, villagers filed into the dark cave where the elephant was kept and described what they experienced.

The one who touched the trunk described the elephant as “a water-pipe creature.” Another who touched its curved back claimed it had a “leathery throne.” The proudest of them all, who felt the tusks, was sure that the creature had a “rounded sword made out of porcelain.”

While each accurately described an aspect, the perceptions did not add up to the elephant we know and recognize today.

Rumi ended the poem with an insight:

Each of us touches one place

and understands the whole in that way.

The palm and the fingers feeling in the dark

are how the senses explore the reality of the elephant.

If each of us held a candle there,

and if we went in together, we could see it.¹

You are coming into a team with your perspectives and experience on how work should be done. You know what you’ve seen and learned, but as Rumi described, it’s only a part of the collective experience of “work,” let alone remote work.

Instead, you’ll want to reflect upon and communicate all that you understand about yourself as a manager—your likes, dislikes, motivations, and more. This act of vulnerability encourages your team to share more about themselves through mirrored actions and open conversations. You’ll also build more transparency and honesty to codesign a way of working that accounts for everyone’s preferences, strengths, and past experience.

KNOW THYSELF

Tam remembers clearly when her coach at Automattic, Akshay Kapur, challenged her to look inside herself with a simple question: “What do you want?” She faltered on the other end of the Zoom screen, unsure how to answer. And later was disappointed in herself—how could she not know what she wanted? The question led her on a path of self-inquiry.

Tam had spent most of her adult life wandering and moving, which brought a paradox of emotions: exhilarating and humbling, eye-opening and confusing. By her mid-30s, she had adapted to her ever-changing environment so many times that she’d lost some of her own identity.

This adaptation mindset followed her to work, which served a purpose. It was second nature for her to shapeshift into what was needed and help others get what they wanted. She had found a knack for making managing directors successful while she worked diligently behind the scenes, making sure that everything was organized and analyzed just so. But while this skill had its time and place, she had never given the same amount of import to the reverse. What would it look like if her environment adapted to her? What did she want in her career and in life? What were her identities, outside of expat and traveler?

That question from Akshay sent her on a crucial search: to learn more about herself. While she’s still doubtful that she’ll ever fully know herself (like Carl Jung, she believes individuation is a lifelong process),² Tam is confident that she understands herself better now than she did back then. She started building more self-awareness by paying attention to the person she was from when she woke up in the morning to when she went to bed at night. That person who was laughing, playing, scheming, daydreaming, fretting, planning, analyzing, and meaning-making—those were her. By becoming more comfortable with her different modalities, she learned to accept the other parts of herself—the good, the OK, and those nagging bits that she wished were different.

Soon, Tam’s life started looking different. She put down roots in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and started getting involved in things she enjoyed and cared about. She signed up for local art classes and volunteered at a food bank. She attended meditation classes and joined a small spiritual group. It became clearer who she was and what she wanted. (This book is a part of that journey.)

It wasn’t enough to think about what she wanted and enjoyed. She also started transforming her environment to reflect this new iteration (rather than having her reflect the environment). She filled her apartment with mementos and reminders: tons of books to be read and art that she loved. There are tarot cards, art supplies, and a giant hammock under the elm trees on the balcony. Collectively, they serve as a mirror, reflecting Tam’s ever-evolving identity to her.

Like Tam, you will need to reflect on your own needs, wants, and desires before being fully present with your team as a manager. This may be one of the greatest lessons of remote management.

There is little room for managers to honestly know themselves in traditional offices. You show up and leave when everyone else does. You adapt your likes, dislikes, and personality to fit in with those around you and the office environment that someone else designed. You can try to do your best work independently or with others but are often thrown off course by someone else’s whims.

In remote work, you can adapt your environment to do your best work, but that requires knowing who you are and what you want. If a traditional office environment has conditioned you, this might be difficult, as it was for Tam.

With general curiosity, start asking yourself questions: What do you want? What do you care about? Who are you when no one is looking? If you’re going to lead others, you’ll need to become comfortable with yourself first—even the parts you don’t like and try your best to hide, ignore, or fix.

EXERCISE: RW Working Style Preferences

In light of Tam’s story, you can use the Mad Libs™–inspired exercise that follows to understand who you are as a manager and employee. You no longer need to assimilate into a single archetype of a “good worker” or a “good manager.”

We’re all coming into a team with past experiences and perspectives. By making them transparent and explicit, you’ll shed light on the team’s true nature. In the words of Rumi, “If each of us held a candle there, and if we went in together, we could see it.”

Instructions

1. Read through the sentences that follow. The sentences in italics are meant for manager personas. All team members can answer the rest.

2. Fill in the blanks.

3. Try to complete this in 10 minutes. Don’t overthink it! There are no wrong answers. Afterward, we’ll reflect on the answers together.

RW Working Style Preferences

On management . . .

  I believe that a “good manager” is __________________ (ADJ), __________________ (ADJ), and __________________ (ADJ).

  The best manager I’ve ever had was __________________ (NAME). I admired his/her/their __________________ (NOUN) because __________________ (REASON).

  The worst manager I’ve ever had was __________________ (NAME). There was tension because of __________________ (DESCRIPTIVE PHRASE).

  When managing a project, I want contributors to check in by__________________ (MEDIUM), __________________ (FREQUENCY) to share __________________(DESCRIPTIVE PHRASE).

  When managing a person, I want to communicate with them through__________________ (MEDIUM), __________________ (FREQUENCY) to share__________________ (DESCRIPTIVE PHRASE).

On trust and rapport . . .

  I like to build trust by __________________ (DESCRIPTIVE PHRASE).

  When trust is broken, I need __________________ (DESCRIPTIVE PHRASE).

  I prefer receiving feedback by __________________ (DESCRIPTIVE PHRASE).

On working preferences . . .

  I have the most energy for focused work from ___________________ (HOUR) to __________________ (HOUR), during the day.

  I need __________________ (DESCRIPTIVE PHRASE) in order to get into the zone of focused work.

  I have the most energy for virtual meetings from __________________ (HOUR) to __________________ (HOUR), during the day.

  I like meetings that are __________________ (DESCRIPTIVE PHRASE).

  I need to prepare for meetings by __________________ (DESCRIPTIVE PHRASE).

  I’m best at communicating when __________________ (DESCRIPTIVE PHRASE).

  My ideal workspace is __________________ (PLACE) because I like to be surrounded by __________________ (DESCRIPTIVE PHRASE)

On ups and downs . . .

  I feel happy at work when __________________ (DESCRIPTIVE PHRASE).

  I feel inspired at work when __________________ (DESCRIPTIVE PHRASE).

  I am surprised or caught off-guard when __________________ (DESCRIPTIVE PHRASE).

  I feel bad when __________________ (DESCRIPTIVE PHRASE).

  I feel angry, stressed, or frustrated when __________________ (DESCRIPTIVE PHRASE).

  If I had a magic wand and could change one thing about work, it’d be __________________ (DESCRIPTIVE PHRASE).

On your spot in the universe . . .

  My “superpowers” at work are __________________ (DESCRIPTIVE PHRASE), __________________ (DESCRIPTIVE PHRASE), and __________________ (DESCRIPTIVE PHRASE).

  If a genie could grant me three wishes, I’d ask for __________________ (NOUN), __________________ (NOUN), and __________________ (NOUN).

  I feel most myself at work or home when I am __________________ (ADJ), __________________ (ADJ), and __________________ (ADJ).

  I’d like to be remembered by my team as__________________ (ADJ).

FINDING YOUR MANAGER STYLE

Something to know about us is, we love a metaphor, a poem, and a pun—but this time, instead of being highbrow, we’ll take it down a notch with an everyday activity: cooking.

Question for you: How many ways are there to cook an egg?

A few come to mind for us—hard-boiled, soft-boiled, scrambled, sunny-side-up, over-easy, poached—but we’re sure any brunch lover could add to that list. Regardless of how it’s cooked, it’s still fundamentally an egg.

Think of your manager roles, like People Manager or Project Manager, as the egg. Roles are relatively finite. You are responsible for a project or a team for a set time, and there is a standard set of deliverables and responsibilities that stay the same. You might find that two people have utterly different approaches to people management, but ultimately they are still responsible for supporting employees to accomplish organizational goals.

Styles, however, are more flexible. It’s how that egg is cooked. Sometimes, certain situations call for different styles of management. Let’s say you want to make a Cobb salad. A hard-boiled egg works better than scrambled. Or perhaps, like Tam, you used to live in Singapore and are craving their famous kaya toast with coconut jam. In that case, a soft-boiled egg is much better than sunny-side up for dipping.

You get the picture. So, before you start getting too hungry, know this: you get to decide how you show up in management.

Let’s repeat: you get to decide how you show up in management.

RW Manager Archetypes

It is essential to have a range when it comes to management styles, though you may naturally tend to rely on one style.

When looking into popular theories on leadership, we were inspired by leaders in this space, such as Daniel Goleman, an expert on emotional intelligence who developed the Six Emotional Leadership Styles, and Ken and Margie Blanchard, who created the Situational Leadership model along with Paul Hersey. (We recommend diving further into their work if interested!)

The theories taught us that while you may be a natural at one type of management style, such as being more directive or coaching, you will have to adapt. It’s crucial to alter your style to account for the preferences of others and the situation at hand.

As Goleman says, “The best leaders don’t know just one style of leadership—they are skilled at several, and have the flexibility to switch between styles as the circumstances dictate.”³

There are so many factors to play with in remote work. Therefore, it is vital to flex, depending on the managerial scenario, the type of project you’re working on, the person you are interacting with, and even the cultural norms of your team members.

Based on our research and lived experiences, we’ve taken a modern spin on all of our favorite leadership approaches and summarized four primary styles that we’ve witnessed in remote organizations.

The archetypes we introduce differ based on orientation toward the team or away and the level of hands-on involvement in day-to-day tasks. Maybe you are naturally more of an Egg Sheeran than an Egg Zeppelin (a bit of foreshadowing to our next metaphor, music),⁴ but it’s still important to understand where you “eggist” in the universe of management styles. That way, you can know how you’re showing up for your team and whether it aligns with the management style you’re striving toward.

So enough with the yolks. Let’s get into the RW Manager Archetypes! (We promise that’s the last egg pun. Ali just can’t help herself.)

Let’s walk through the dimensions together (figure 2.1).

Involvement (X-Axis)

• Hands-on involvement describes managers who are more heavily involved in the team’s day-to-day activities. It may occur for many reasons: personal preference to be a part of the team, the perception that the team needs support, or sometimes lack of trust.

• Hands-off involvement happens when your team is more self-directed or autonomous. This may occur if you believe your team has a high competence level or a high degree of trust.

FIGURE 2.1 RW Manager Archetypes Matrix

Orientation (Y-Axis)

• Team-focused styles nurture the team’s development and ensure that individual members are getting their work needs met. In some cases, these managers may contribute to the team’s work (e.g., an engineer who is also a team lead) or play a coaching role.

• Organization-focused styles are concerned with representing their team to the broader organization. This style is excellent at “managing up” and “managing out.” They enjoy showcasing the great work of their team to leadership, external partners and customers, or other teams.

EXERCISE: Determining Your RW Manager Archetype

Wondering how you fit into the picture? While your style should flex based on the situation, you can use this quiz to see where you are now or how you most naturally show up.

Hands-On vs. Hands-Off

1. I prefer

a. to have consistent core working hours for my team and collaborate synchronously.

b. to have a “work wherever, whenever” policy for my team.

2. I am more likely to

a. share a goal alongside a straightforward process to reach the goal.

b. share a goal and let my team create their own strategy for achieving that goal.

3. After a meeting with my team, I usually

a. prescribe the next steps to the most relevant teammate.

b. draw out themes and have my team decide how to act on them.

If you mainly answered a’s, you are likely hands-on. Mostly b’s, you are likely hands-off.

Team- vs. Organization-Focused

1. I tend to spend more of my energy

a. focused on checking in with how my team is doing and protecting my team from external challenges or office politics.

b. focused on how my team is perceived by the organization and ensuring that their performance positively impacts company goals.

2. I would rather

a. be seen as part of the team.

b. be respected as the team leader.

3. With my team, I mostly talk about

a. how their strengths contribute to the team, how they want to develop, and their personal interests.

b. the work to be done, how the team can shine within the organization, and what is next for the team in terms of company priorities.

If you mainly answered a’s, you are likely team-focused. Mostly b’s, organization-facing.

So, where do you fit in?

Circle your answers that follow and find your style using the graphics.

While this quiz is not science, it will help you describe your natural style or where you are today. Remember, certain styles may be more fitting for specific situations.

There will be specific events where your team needs you to march to the beat of a different drum. For example, you may naturally act as a Composer, but when it comes to writing updates for board meetings, you flex to the Promoter, wanting to impress leadership with all the fantastic work that your team’s completed.

Let’s dive into the RW Manager Archetypes to learn more about each style and the steps you can take to flex into that type when the situation calls for it (figure 2.2).

FIGURE 2.2 Revisiting the RW Manager Archetypes Matrix—Finding Your Style

The Bandleader: Maceo Parker

The Bandleader has something special. Some call it charisma; others see it as easily building trust. Bandleaders are as much a part of the team as they are leaders of the team. They thrive when helping the team build something better together than each individual could contribute on their own, themselves included. Take Maceo Parker as an example.

Maceo Parker is an American treasure. Not only has he performed with nearly every funk leader, calling artists like James Brown and Prince his friends and bandmates, but at the age of 79, he’s still performing.

When Tamara saw Maceo and his funk band play live in New York City, she claims, it felt as much like dance as it did music. All the band members riffed off each other, and it felt as natural as a conversation. They were all onstage together, working as a unit.

Explaining the Bandleader Archetype

What It Is

• You act as a role model for your team and lead by example.

• You actively participate in the group while also offering support and guidance.

• You provide support for individuals when they ask, yet your focus is on creating a positive group vibe.

• You are respected because of your vision, expertise, and leadership qualities.

When It Works

• Your team is high functioning and highly competent.

• You want your team to cocreate with you.

What You Gain

• A high degree of trust.

• Collaboration and creativity from all team members.

• Ability to be informal in your communication and relationship building.

What You Trade

• Prescriptive control—it may be harder to delegate or directly provide instruction.

• Formal boundaries—you will need to know when and where to draw a boundary and set clear expectations on behavioral norms within the team.

Remote Best Practices

• Be in the virtual trenches with your team. If you have asynchronous stand-ups on Slack or your project management tool, share what you are working on and your struggles.

• Celebrate wins. Highlight and encourage behaviors you see happening in your digital space. A quick emoji can go a long way.

• Don’t always be the leader. Rotate roles, especially in meetings, to give others a chance to lead.

How to Flex

• Being a Bandleader increases your team’s autonomy and will likely increase their work satisfaction. It will also give you a chance to sink your teeth into some content or code, which can be a refreshing change of pace.

• Try acting as a Bandleader in low-complexity situations. When can you allow other team members to rise to the challenge of leadership? What situations exist today that can be opportunities to practice flexing this style?

The Bandleader: In Real Life (IRL)

When we asked Anne McCarthy of Automattic about her management style, she referred to herself as a “walk alongside you” leader. She’s heavily involved in the team’s day-to-day work and often does the same things she’s asking her team to do. She gives her team ownership and autonomy over their workflow. Her presence enables her to adapt to and evolve the team’s changing needs; her deep expertise gives her a lens for coaching and skill development.

Phil Freo, VP product and engineering at Close.com, generally tries to be a hands-off manager, though he often errs on the side of Promoter (our next style coming up) over Bandleader. When he flexes to Bandleader, it is usually to build understanding. “I try to push some code, even if it’s something extremely tiny. Every single time, I learn something, like ‘Ah, there’s so much pain in our developer environment.’ It gives me more empathy.”

The Promoter: Brian Epstein, “The Fifth Beatle”

Lady luck struck Brian Epstein on November 9, 1961. That fateful day at the Cavern Club in Liverpool, Brian first heard the Beatles perform at a lunchtime concert; the rest is history. Less than three months later, Brian became the Beatles’ manager—eventually garnering him a unique role in the band as the legendary “Fifth Beatle.”

Brian knew his place. The Beatles had talent, magic, and mojo; he didn’t need to interfere. Instead, he did what he did best: managing all the moving pieces with third parties outside of the band—contracts, gigs, promotions—so he could set the Beatles up for success.

Like Brian Epstein, when you’re a Promoter, you are your team’s biggest fan, and you want to make big things happen for them. You’re championing them for promotions, you’re knocking down the doors of the marketing team for a bigger budget, and you’re fighting for the resources they need to be successful. Given your outward orientation, your day is likely filled with meetings with other teams, but you make sure you’re available to give guidance and help your team shine.

Explaining the Promoter Archetype

What It Is

• You act as the organization-facing leader for your team, ensuring that they have the right tools and resources to do their job and championing their success within the company.

• You support your team yet assume they will proactively come to you with challenges or requests for help.

• You expect your team to reach results based on their abilities and direction.

• Your team respects you because of your ability to help influence the rest of the company.

When It Works

• Your team is high functioning and highly competent.

• Relationships and stakeholders outside your core team are important to cultivate.

What You Gain

• Organizational influence—your team will have connections and resources within the broader organization.

• Information and insight—you will also have critical knowledge to take back to your team about the company’s activities and broader goals.

What You Trade

• Direct team control—you may not be the person making day-to-day decisions.

• Regular involvement and collaboration with the team.

Remote Best Practices

• Manage information flow. Have a dedicated online space, such as Slack or Discord, to share your learnings. Ask your team to highlight things they want to be shared.

• Extend meeting invites. Don’t feel the need to promote alone! Do you have a star employee and a meeting request at a time zone better suited for them? Let them take it. Seek opportunities to get your team directly involved in the larger organization. Building these connections will be mutually beneficial.

How to Flex

• You’ll want to flex to the Promoter style at critical moments in your team’s evolution. For example, annual planning, budget discussions, and hiring decisions tend to be when you’ll need to represent your team within the broader organization.

• If your team is more senior, this style can also be great to ensure that they have visibility into organizational-wide decisions. As a Promoter, you act as the conduit of knowledge.

• This can be an excellent position to take if there is unequal influence or respect within the company (e.g., you manage a team of designers in a developer-focused company culture).

The Promoter in Real Life (IRL)

Steph Yiu, the chief customer officer of WordPress VIP, sees her role as helping her employees “do the best work they’ve done in their career.” She knows how to pull specific levers to get employees the opportunities and resources.

Steph often finds herself in a position to recommend people for promotions or strategize on career growth. When employees ask her for their next challenge, it is up to her to say, “Yep, I can help you try a management role or try a senior IC role.” Or “Nope, I can’t give that to you now. Can we work on it together, or can we try again in six months?”

Steph thrives as a manager when her employees know what they want. It’s clear how to move forward and make things happen within the broader organization.

The Agent: SM Entertainment, K-Pop

The Agent describes a manager who is tactically involved in the team’s day-to-day activities. The flow of information tends to be top-down, and as a manager, you have particular expectations, roles, and methods of approaching work for your team.

For example, SM Entertainment’s role in the notorious K-pop girl band, Girls’ Generation. It is not easy to be part of this group. It requires up to five years of training before debuting for the first time onstage. But it’s worth it. Girls’ Generation was the first girl group to have four music videos with over 100 million views each on You-Tube. That’s more than 3,044 years of collective watch time. (Think about that for a second.)

Their lives, though, are tightly controlled. Their songs are written by their agent, SM Entertainment, which also lines up endorsement deals. There’s a formula for success, and SM Entertainment knows it, inside and out. They control the entire process, from scouting to training to performing.

When you’re managing like an Agent, you control every detail of your team’s work and are also very concerned about external perception. This may be important if you’re a civil engineering manager and any mistake could result in public harm, but in general, it is this archetype that we caution you to use with care.

Explaining the Agent Archetype

What It Is

• You generally take a more autocratic approach to delegate work to your team.

• You provide individual support for team members through highly directive processes, instructions, and expectation setting.

• You are respected because of your formal role.

When It Works

• Your team has talent but requires training and apprenticeship.

• You need to control the external and internal elements to be successful.

What You Gain

• Team control—you can assign tasks and responsibilities without much forward planning.

• Output control—you have a high degree of oversight and provide multiple rounds of feedback before completing a final project.

What You Trade

• Input and creative contributions from team members.

• Self-motivation of employees that stems from autonomy and self-direction.

• Sense of trust and flexibility on the team.

Remote Best Practices

• Create a container. When you break projects down into specific tasks, you can act as an Agent within particular tasks, such as singular meetings, without risking team autonomy.

• We recommend using this type of management style in limited capacities due to the risk of hindering motivation, decreasing productivity, and discouraging one of the most significant benefits of remote work: freedom.

How to Flex

• You’ll want to flex to the Agent style when setting up the scaffolding of your team. It’s vital to lay the proper foundation within the team—hiring the right people, training them, outlining their work—and foster the right external relationships to be successful.

The Agent in Real Life (IRL)

There’s a time and a place for this management style, but use it carefully! Siobhan McKeown, the COO of Human Made, believes that “[m]icromanagement does not work in remote work. You cannot micromanage unless someone is really struggling. If someone is burned out, I’ll go through their to-do list with them and help them prioritize. I’ll help them look at their work in different ways.”

Akshay Kapur, head of coaching at Automattic, commented on a few situations requiring a more directive style: “If you have a project deadline coming up, then as a leader, you may need to be more direct and speed-oriented. There might be quick updates around what’s necessary, which might be very directive. It might even be uncomfortable for a leader who’s more of a servant leader.”

The Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven

Some managers, like the Composers, can see (or hear) the bigger piece of the puzzle and work to place the pieces accordingly. Managers with this style may expect different things from each employee based on their unique strengths and work with them to delegate roles as they see fit, expecting employees to follow a process, but are not necessarily interested in details of lesser importance.

Take Beethoven, for example. At 21, he left his dysfunctional home to study under Joseph Haydn. Nearly a decade later, he performed his first symphony, appropriately named Symphony No. 1, at the K. K. Hoftheater nächst der Burg in Vienna. Flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, trumpets, timpani, violins, violas, cellos, and contrabasses played for 25 minutes. Beethoven had a vision and a plan. The musicians needed to play the musical notes precisely as he’d written. This left little room for autonomy or self-direction but resulted in a work of beauty.

The Composer tends to have a rigid process. If a flute player goes off script, it can ruin the song for everyone. However, the Composer is deeply involved in the team’s work and is receptive to feedback. They love to hear ideas and suggestions from the flute player on how to change the process (or, in this case, the composition)—just not in the middle of a performance.

You might need to flex into the Composer role when in the execution phase. Perhaps you’re a product manager, and your team needs to launch a new feature built to spec by a specific date. There’s no time to debate or rehash previous decisions. Or maybe you’re a marketer, and your team is creating a commercial. There’s no time to go back on creative decisions once shooting.

Explaining the Composer Archetype

What It Is

• You are an expert at seeing the big picture and how everyone can play a role.

• You create and provide specific processes, instructions, and expectations for your team and then expect them to execute independently.

• You delegate work based on your team members’ unique skill sets and interests.

• You are respected because of how you take individual work preferences into account.

When It Works

• Your work requires the ability to follow processes, but you believe in your team’s abilities to get it done autonomously.

• There is a transparent process or directions to follow, and you are open to feedback on the process itself.

• You are skilled at guiding your team on complex tasks.

What You Gain

• Ensuring task completion on a regular cadence.

• A balance of autonomy and directive control.

• Removes guesswork—you know the process that will be followed and can quickly check in on work as desired.

What You Trade

• Creativity from discovering new ways of doing things.

• Potential demotivator if the process is too limiting. There should still be room for autonomy and flexibility for team members.

Remote Best Practices

• Embrace documentation. To balance autonomy and direction, you must use the process, not yourself and your personality, to manage.

• Reinforce behaviors over tools. Provide feedback on the behaviors you observe within the tools rather than the tools themselves. Are they setting expectations in your project management system? Are they documenting their code in GitHub? Focus on expectation setting, clear communication, and streamlining tasks, and less on how often team members log in.

How to Flex

• You’ll want to flex to the Composer style when execution is paramount. The buy-in is there; now it’s time to get things done. To flex to this style, develop a work plan and have clear checkpoints for accountability.

• Documentation skills become paramount. Learn how to record the structure, workflow, and knowledge base so that your team can learn, understand, and find answers to their questions independently. You maintain control but are not a roadblock to getting things done.

The Composer in Real Life (IRL)

Zbigniew Motak described his former manager and our coauthor Ali at DuckDuckGo as a Composer: “You empower through delegation. If it’s not formal delegation, you see what they’re interested in and make sure they can work on it.”

Ali spent most of her time creating and building new processes from scratch instead of directing her team on what to do and when. When her teammates were tasked with leading projects, they could follow the processes and iterate on them. That was how Zbigniew came to perfect the project stage of the interview process for candidates, while another employee, Bill, managed first-round interviews and early-stage communication with candidates.

BUILDING CONSCIOUS LEADERSHIP

You have learned more about yourself and your working preferences from the Mad Libs exercise. You can see how to flex between management styles based on the situation according to the RW Manager Archetypes.

To put it into practice, you’ll need to hone your self-awareness skills further. You need to be able to read the team’s ever-changing landscape to decide what style is required. You’ll need to reflect upon your actions and communication style to understand how they impact your team.

That’s no easy feat! So we looked to a few current and former executive coaches for advice on becoming a conscious leader.

Attunement

When Tam asked Akshay Kapur, head of coaching at Automattic, what coaching skill could immediately apply to managers, his answer was clear: attunement. Akshay explained:

It’s the ability to meet the other person where they’re at in the moment. And that includes meeting oneself where they’re at that moment. . . . Your ability to pay attention to what’s in between you and the other person is my definition of attunement.

An example is how you and I had scheduled a call last time, and I felt like I had a headache. I was out of it and didn’t feel like I would be able to show up. I communicated that with you, and you were kind enough to reschedule.

Or let’s say you came onto the call, and you said, “I feel like I’m pushing through here; maybe this is not the right time to talk.” That’s a simple example of meeting someone where they’re not.

A complex example is when somebody says, “I don’t think I’m good at delegation.” And at that moment, you can give advice. You can share your experience. You can talk to somebody about why they think that. You can ask them to provide an example. There are so many ways to go.

Attunement can look like an unscripted dance (a client’s actual term to describe one of Akshay’s coaching sessions). Rather than coming in with a plan or methodology, he chooses to go into the room “empty.” Through this practice, Akshay can be attentive to the other person’s needs at the moment—both verbal and nonverbal—to understand where and how they’re struggling.

Akshay might offer tactical advice or tell a personal story based on those cues. He might ask a question or take a breath and pause. Not everything needs to be fixed; sometimes, people need space and the confidence to fix it themselves. Consider this advice:

A remarkable outcome of being open is that people become vulnerable, sensitive, and even emotional at times. When there is nothing wanted of them, and you hold a genuine belief that they are OK as they are, it can be unnerving to those for whom high expectations are a norm. Their nervous system is no longer on alert, and it can relax. And when it does, sometimes personal or professional emotions pour out. The coaching space is not meant to be therapeutic, but holding a stance of complete openness can be therapeutic in and of itself. I’m quite moved when this happens.

Building Trust

Taylor Jacobson, CEO of Focusmate and a former executive coach, emphasized the need for managers to build their “trust muscles.” It might not come naturally, especially when there is a lot at stake, like your reputation, a deadline, or an expectation by your boss. “It’s about being willing not to push someone to get something done but trusting that people are intrinsically motivated. And frankly, pushing them to value their well-being higher. Many on our team have experienced burnout and have experienced major health issues due to overwork and overstress. We’re creating a workplace where we actively talk about those things.”

Darcy Boles echoed a similar sentiment about building your trust muscles as a remote worker. “I think it takes six months to two years to fully trust yourself to work remotely, like truly remote. Getting on a phone with somebody instead of a video call takes a certain amount of trust.”

Darcy still remembers a new employee who asked if they could go to the bathroom, and she was baffled until she thought more about it. “The place they had come from was very regimented—industrial revolution style. They were clocking in and clocking out, and they had to be at their desks all of the time. This person was now remote and didn’t know what to do with their freedom. They didn’t trust themselves or me yet to design their life around their work.”

If you’ve been told that work looks one way, and suddenly the paradigm shifts, it can be scary and disorienting, like when an animal is finally let out of its cage but is too afraid to explore.

Darcy suggests that remote workers challenge each other to do something scary in the middle of the day—even if it’s simply a midday walk at first. If not, you’ll keep seeing fallback into familiar nine-to-five patterns. Instead, Darcy encourages her team “to manage their energy instead of their time.”

Walking the Talk

Ben Brooks, a former executive coach and the CEO of PILOT, an employee development platform, highlighted the need for managers to walk the talk. If you’re expecting certain norms and behaviors from your team, you need to model them as a manager.

For example, Ben encourages his team to establish work-life boundaries. He wants them to be able to unplug at the end of the day. That being said, Ben also has a personal preference as a business owner to answer emails after hours when it’s quieter, and his calendar is free.

To balance the needs of his team (work-life boundaries) and his needs (to answer emails after hours), he compromises. He knows that sending a rush of emails at 10 p.m. will overwhelm his team (it’s hard to say no to CEO emails at night), so instead he schedules the emails to go out the following day at 8 a.m. It’s a small gesture that goes a long way.

Managers and their teams are the heartbeat of an organization. If they stop functioning, the organization dies. Your influence as a manager will impact your team members and the direction of your organization.

Remember: Know thyself. Flex your style. And stay conscious of the adapting needs of your team. It’s a big responsibility, but the power already lies inside you. We believe in you!

ALI’S ADVICE

Before you dig into what tools to use, how to look better on video chat, or which virtual team-building activities aren’t too lame, you need to build a strong foundation internally. The most significant shift you will need to make as a remote leader is self-awareness. Everything stems from self-awareness.

The more you figure out who you are as a leader, what you enjoy about managing, what your quirks are, and how it translates to a remote environment, the easier it will be to set expectations and build trust.

TAM’S TIPS

If you’re wired toward idealism or altruism, it can be helpful to see your role as a manager as more of a vocation than a job. Your actions will impact the emotional well-being of those on your team or project. Find ways to make it a worthwhile experience, and you’ll be making a positive impact in the world every day.