I get deep personal rewards from instructor-led facilitation, so I was straight-up skeptical about transitioning to digital learning. Would I still feel connected to participants’ experience if all of our interaction was virtual? But since Enact just introduced our online learning program: the Emerging Leader Experience, I had to step up my game.
In my first facilitation of the program, I ‘listened’ to the questions in the discussion boards, I constantly reflected back and verified what my intuition told me was going on, and I used all of my facilitation and coaching skills at their maximum during the brief windows when I was online in real time with the group. Then the magic happened! I realized that I knew these leaders and felt as connected as if the experience had been classroom based.
In the program module Inspiring Team Excellence, participants’ burning question was how to lead a virtual team. Here is the secret…
There aren’t any magical skills needed to lead a virtual team,
you just have to be excellent and holistic in applying the skills you do have.
Everything happens in those short times that you are ‘face-to-face’ on your team call. While you are intent on execution – going over action items and making decisions–true “virtual excellence” is achieved by taking those moments to intentionally build relationship, apply intuition, create safety, give feedback, set norms, develop their skills, and coach. You can do it!
Take this self-assessment to see where you need to close the gap in your ‘Virtual Excellence’.
