Remote work has transformed how many businesses operate.
Whether your employees work remotely full time, in a hybrid environment, or across global offices, managing distributed teams requires more than the right technology. It demands intentional communication, trust, and leadership practices that keep employees connected and informed.
As remote and hybrid work have become more common, business leaders across industries have had to adapt how they manage teams.
In the online course Leadership Principles, Harvard Business School Professor Anthony Mayo explains that overseeing remote workers presents unique challenges for managers.
“With a dispersed or distributed team, the role and responsibilities of the team leader are heightened,” Mayo says in Leadership Principles. “The leader must ensure ongoing communication, reinforce team norms, encourage collaboration, and actively solicit the input and perspectives of everyone on the team, especially those who aren’t co-located.”
If you want to lead distributed teams effectively and equip your employees to succeed, here are 12 tips for managing remote teams.
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How to Manage Remote Teams
1. Establish Team Norms and Expectations
Research shows that only about half of all professionals understand what’s expected of them at work, which can negatively affect their engagement and performance.
To help remote employees succeed, it’s vital to establish team norms that define how they’ll communicate, make decisions, and collaborate.
“One way in which dispersed teams can ensure they get off to a good start is to engage in a formal launch process,” Mayo says in Leadership Principles. “Even if a face-to-face meeting isn’t possible, it’s critically important to be deliberate and intentional in launching the team and collectively agreeing upon norms to govern the work you do together across locations.
Through this process, team members get to know each other in a meaningful way, and that helps lay the foundation for working together more effectively in the future.”
2. Hold Regular Check-Ins and One-On-One Conversations
Regular check-ins aren't just opportunities to share updates—they're moments to uncover concerns employees may otherwise keep to themselves. That’s why consistent communication is one of a manager’s most important responsibilities.
“Communication is the currency of management,” says HBS Professor Joseph Fuller in the online course Management Essentials. “It’s how managers learn what’s happening, how they shape their own judgment, and how they align others around a course of action.”
As the course emphasizes, managers are often more vulnerable to what isn't said than to open disagreement. When employees hesitate to speak up, leaders make decisions with incomplete information.
According to management consulting firm Gallup, employees who regularly meet with their managers are three times more engaged than their peers. Studies also show that employees are four times more likely to be disengaged when they don’t meet one-on-one with their supervisors.
3. Leverage Technology
When scheduling check-ins and one-on-ones, use technology to facilitate face-to-face communication whenever possible. Research highlighted by a study detailed in the Harvard Business Review suggests that requests made face-to-face are 34 times more successful than those sent by email.
Videoconferencing tools, such as Zoom and Google Meet, create opportunities for more meaningful conversations. In a survey of more than 300 executives by Forbes Insights, 62 percent said videoconferencing significantly improved communication quality compared to audioconferencing, and 50 percent said it increases understanding.
In addition, use project management and collaboration platforms, such as Trello, Asana, Slack, or Microsoft Teams, to keep work organized and information flowing across your team.
Explore four strategies for effectively managing remote teams to strengthen communication, build trust, and keep employees connected in the video below, and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more explainer content.
4. Communicate Constantly
Communication is how managers learn what’s happening, shape their judgment, and align others around a course of action. According to the Association for Talent Development, 83 percent of business leaders said communication is the most important skill for managerial success.
“As a general guideline, leaders often feel they’re communicating enough, whereas their teams often feel they’re getting insufficient communication,” Mayo says in Leadership Principles.
Clear and consistent communication is paramount to effectively leading remote employees. But in distributed teams, it requires more than frequent updates. Managers must intentionally create systems that provide clarity, coordination, and accountability when employees aren't working side by side.
As Management Essentials explains, distributed teams lose many of the informal interactions that naturally occur in shared workplaces. Rather than relying on spontaneous conversations, managers must intentionally define how information is shared, decisions are made, and progress is tracked.
The course highlights four principles that help remote and hybrid teams succeed:
Explicitness: Clearly define roles, responsibilities, and decision rights
Deliberate learning: Intentionally create opportunities for onboarding, coaching, and knowledge sharing
Intentional interaction: Plan meaningful touchpoints instead of relying on spontaneous conversations
Visible progress: Make work and milestones easy for everyone to track
Together, these principles help managers build the structure and transparency that distributed teams need to stay aligned, productive, and connected.
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5. Be Transparent
Transparency is one of the most important communication skills a leader can develop. Data shows it’s a top indicator of employee happiness.
When communicating a key initiative, such as organizational change, explain the rationale behind why certain decisions were made and invite your employees to ask questions. Doing so helps ensure everyone is on the same page while building a stronger foundation of trust.
Transparency also means inviting discussion. Rather than simply announcing decisions, managers should encourage questions and alternative viewpoints. As Management Essentials explains, asking questions such as, "What am I missing?" or "What other perspectives should we consider?" creates space for honest dialogue.
6. Instill a Sense of Purpose
A shared sense of purpose can have a profound impact on individual, team, and business performance. According to Google research, setting a clear team vision is one of the top behaviors of high-performing managers.
In a survey by PwC, 83 percent of professionals said purpose brings meaning to their daily work.
For distributed teams, maintaining that sense of purpose requires intentional effort. Managers can't rely on proximity to keep colleagues aligned. Instead, they need to help employees understand how their work connects to the broader organization.
Hayden Brown, CEO of Upwork, explains in Management Essentials that high-performing distributed organizations "cascade information effectively through the organization, so everyone has shared context." At Upwork, regular all-staff meetings, transparent updates, and opportunities for employees to ask questions help create "a shared narrative and a shared context" that teams can use to make better decisions.
Whether through regular team meetings, written updates, or in-person gatherings, building shared context helps employees understand how their work contributes to broader organizational goals.
7. Trust and Empower Your Employees
Employee empowerment is essential to building high-trust teams. According to a Great Place to Work report, organizations with trust-based cultures have higher levels of innovation, customer satisfaction, employee engagement, and agility.
To empower your remote employees, avoid micromanaging, delegate tasks that provide growth opportunities, and involve your team in decision-making.
Entrusting your employees with important projects and involving them in key decisions demonstrates that you value their contributions while strengthening working relationships.
Trust also means believing employees have valuable information to contribute. When managers encourage employees to speak openly—even when they disagree—they gain perspectives that improve decision-making and reduce blind spots.
8. Provide Support
Beyond delegating tasks, support your employees’ professional development and help them set meaningful goals.
Gallup research shows that 69 percent of employees whose managers help them set work priorities and performance goals are engaged.
If an employee wants to bolster their business skills, for example, suggest they take an online course and outline how it can help them advance their career.
9. Solicit Feedback
In addition to giving feedback and guidance to your employees, seek their input on your own performance.
Soliciting feedback not only strengthens self-awareness and emotional intelligence, but also reinforces a growth mindset.
Research shows professionals with a growth mindset are:
More mentally prepared to take on challenges
Use feedback to their advantage
Highly adept at problem-solving
Effective at providing developmental feedback to employees
Persistent in their pursuit of goals
By heightening your self-awareness, you can identify your weaknesses and craft a stronger leadership development plan, enabling you to become a better manager and set a positive example for your remote team.
Gathering meaningful feedback requires more than asking whether everything is "going well."
Instead, pose questions that encourage employees to elaborate, challenge assumptions, and contribute new perspectives. Management Essentials recommends techniques such as:
Asking for specific examples
Testing assumptions
Broadening participation by inviting quieter team members into discussions
Reframing conversations to encourage additional input
These practices help managers surface information that might otherwise remain unspoken.
10. Foster Empathy and Cultural Awareness
Empathy is a major driver of work performance and a foundational element of emotional intelligence.
When leading a global, distributed team, it’s important to recognize cultural differences and create an inclusive environment. That includes considering time zone differences and being mindful of important holidays and days of observance.
Empathy also means recognizing that employees may hesitate to raise concerns because of hierarchy, uncertainty, or fear of being wrong. Managers who intentionally create an environment where people feel comfortable speaking up are more likely to uncover issues before they affect team performance.
11. Make Time to Connect and Socialize
One of the biggest challenges of managing a remote team is fostering the relationships that naturally develop through in-person conversations and day-to-day interactions in a shared office.
A report by software company Buffer shows that 19 percent of remote employees report loneliness as their biggest challenge. In a survey by cloud services provider CoSo Cloud, it was found that more than half of remote employees feel disconnected from their in-office colleagues.
“You need to create substitutes for the casual hallway conversations, meals, and accidental interactions that typically happen in the course of a day and week when everyone is geographically in the same place,” Mayo says in Leadership Principles.
Help your remote employees feel like they’re part of the team by organizing online gatherings, such as virtual happy hours, and allow time for informal conversation before team meetings. Research shows it’s an effective way to strengthen bonds and develop trust.
12. Promote Work-Life Balance
Work-life balance is one of the top drivers of attraction for U.S. employees. Data shows, however, that unplugging after work is the biggest challenge faced by 22 percent of remote employees.
Reinforce the norms and expectations you established at the outset by encouraging your employees to maintain a defined schedule, take breaks, and disconnect when the workday ends.
Doing so can help reduce burnout and boost your team’s performance.
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Enabling Your Remote Team to Succeed
Leading remote and hybrid teams requires more than scheduling virtual meetings or selecting collaboration tools. Effective managers create environments where employees feel comfortable asking questions, sharing concerns, and challenging assumptions.
By leading with intention—fostering open dialogue, building trust, and communicating with purpose—you can help distributed teams stay connected, make better decisions, and perform at their best.
Do you want to become a more effective leader and manager? Explore Leadership Principles and Management Essentials—two of our online leadership and management courses. Not sure which course to take? Download our free flowchart to determine the right fit.
This post was updated on July 31, 2026. It was originally published on April 14, 2020.