Remote isn’t the problem. Leadership is.
We’ve heard the blame: “Remote teams just aren’t as productive.” “People are disengaged. We need people back in the office to fix this.”
But remote work didn’t create these problems. It just exposed them.
The real issue is the leadership models that haven’t adapted. Too many teams are still led like everyone’s down the hall, still think hours = output, and rely on presence to feel like progress is happening.
But remote work strips all that away. There are no desks to monitor, hallway chats to scan, or instant feedback loops.
So what happens? Deadlines slip. People go quiet. Leaders start guessing. And in the absence of clear direction or trust, burnout fills the gap.
This post shares a clear approach to leading remote teams that focuses on trust, clarity, and outcomes. You’ll learn how to support your team, keep performance strong, and make remote work actually work.
Visibility isn’t surveillance but shared clarity.
When things feel off in a remote team, most leaders instinctively reach for control.
They add more meetings, install time-tracking software, or start watching who’s “green” on Slack.
But the truth is, your team doesn’t have clarity if you’re reaching for surveillance.
In high-trust, high-performing teams, people don’t need to be watched. They need to know what matters, where to focus, and how to tell if they’re making progress.
GitLab gets this right. With over 2,000 employees working remotely across 60+ countries, they’ve built one of the most visible workplaces in the world—without a single office or surveillance tool.
Their solution? A shared handbook that documents how everything works, from project workflows to vacation policies. It’s not just for onboarding, it’s their operating system.
The point isn’t to copy GitLab’s exact tools but to adopt the principle behind them: make the important things visible so no one has to rely on proximity or whispers to stay aligned.
What does that look like in practice?
- Clear, documented goals. Not vague OKRs tucked away in a slide, but team-level targets people refer to weekly.
- A single source of truth. Whether it’s Notion, Asana, or Trello, everyone should know where to look to see what’s in motion, who’s on it, and where it’s stuck.
- Open decisions. Stop locking insights in private chats. Document decisions where others can access and learn from them.
- Public recognition. Don’t wait for performance reviews. Share wins openly. Make good work contagious.
Visibility shouldn’t mean pressure. It should mean confidence on both sides.
When people know what’s expected, where things stand, and how success is measured, they don’t need to be checked on. They just need to be supported.
That’s what remote teams are really asking for. Not freedom without structure. But freedom within structure.
Burnout doesn’t wave red flags
Remote workers burn out just as often as office workers, but they’re way less likely to say anything. That’s the real problem. It’s not that burnout happens less in remote teams. It’s that it hides better.
In a remote setup, you won’t see someone dragging themselves into a meeting room or venting by the coffee machine. There’s no slumped body language, no tension in the air. There’s just… silence. It usually shows up like:
- Someone stops sharing ideas.
- They’re still getting things done, but it’s slower, more surface-level.
- Messages get shorter. Cameras stay off.
- And from the outside, it looks like they’re doing fine.
That’s why remote burnout is so easy to miss. You assume they’re just introverted. Or focused. Or tired. Until they quit out of nowhere or finally admit they’ve been running on fumes for months.
And it’s not always too much work. Sometimes, it’s not enough support. No feedback or real connection. Just the slow, draining feeling that no one’s noticing the effort.
We’ve seen it happen. A high performer keeps showing up, hitting deadlines, updating the tracker. Looks like everything is on track. Then she takes a break and never comes back. Her reason? “I don’t feel like part of a team. I feel like I’m just delivering tasks into a void.”
She isn’t burned out from overwork. She is burned out from feeling invisible.
That’s the thing, burnout in remote teams doesn’t shout. It fades. And if you’re waiting for missed deadlines or skipped meetings, you’re already too late.
Real leadership means noticing the quiet signs. And building a team culture where people don’t have to hide when they’re struggling.
Great remote leadership is about energy design, not time management
Most leaders still treat remote work like a time puzzle.
“How do I know they’re working?” “Should we have core hours?” “Can we track productivity better?”
But it’s not about managing time. It’s about designing for energy.
The real question isn’t how many hours people work but how people feel while doing the work.
Tired people don’t collaborate well. Disconnected people don’t innovate. Burned-out people deliver, but it’s hollow. They’re counting down, not buying in.
This is where leadership comes in, not to squeeze more out, but to build smarter systems around how energy flows.
Start here:
- Stop rewarding endurance. If your team is always online, always “on,” they’re not winning. They’re depleting.
- Design for recovery. Buffer famously implemented a 4-day workweek experiment after noticing pandemic-era fatigue. The result? Productivity stayed steady—and morale improved.
- Rethink meetings. A 2022 Harvard Business Review study showed that reducing meetings by just 40% increased productivity and lowered stress. Fewer meetings isn’t a perk, it’s a performance strategy.
- Protect deep work. Block off time. Cancel recurring calls that don’t add value. Don’t make people earn focus time—it should be the default, not the exception.
- Create energy rituals. Weekly wins. Public appreciation. Encouragement to fully log off on Fridays. These aren’t “nice-to-haves.” They’re how culture stays alive in a distributed setting.
Think of your team’s energy like a shared budget. When the system constantly drains it, even your best people go into survival mode. But when the system protects and replenishes energy, people don’t just deliver. They care.
Leadership in a remote world isn’t about managing minutes. It’s building momentum. And that starts with how you protect the energy that drives everything forward.
Culture is what people feel when no one’s watching
Culture isn’t a value statement. It’s not your onboarding slide deck. And it’s definitely not the occasional “team bonding” activity squeezed into a calendar invite.
In remote teams, culture shows up in quieter, more honest ways. It’s how someone feels when they miss a deadline, whether people speak freely in meetings or stay silent, or how your team behaves when you’re not on the Zoom call.
And because the cues are subtler, it’s easy for culture to drift.
That’s why remote culture can’t be left to chance. It has to be designed through repetition, consistency, and intent.
Take Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com. With over 2,000 employees across 90+ countries, they don’t have offices. But they have culture. Strong, visible, and deeply felt. How?
They use internal blogs for communication, not just Slack. They write things down, document decisions, and build rituals—from virtual coffee chats to annual meetups—that create belonging across time zones.
Here’s what strong remote cultures share:
- Emotional consistency. If your tone shifts wildly depending on pressure, people won’t feel safe. Predictability builds trust.
- Visible appreciation. Recognition shouldn’t be rare or reserved for promotions. Whether it’s a “thank you” in a team thread or a shoutout during a meeting, praise shapes how people see their place in the team.
- Safe defaults. Can people speak up without punishment? Take a break without guilt? Raise concerns without being sidelined? If not, that is your culture.
- Leader behavior that sets the standard. If you respond to Slack at midnight, you’re setting the expectation—whether you mean to or not. People watch what you do more than what you say.
The point is simple. Culture isn’t built in the big moments. It’s shaped by small ones, repeated daily.
And in remote teams, those small moments are the only ones you get. So you have to make them count.
Build systems, not superstars
High-performing teams don’t succeed because they have a few heroic individuals. They succeed because their systems don’t require heroics in the first place.
This is where many remote teams quietly break down. Instead of designing for sustainability, they lean on their most capable people to carry the weight, until those people burn out or walk away.
It’s tempting to celebrate this kind of hustle. But over time, it becomes a trap. One person becomes the bottleneck. Others disengage. And when that superstar leaves? The system collapses.
The better path is to design a setup that distributes clarity, not pressure.
Here’s what that looks like:
- Async workflows by default. When work doesn’t depend on live meetings, it moves faster—and people regain control of their time. GitLab, for example, documents nearly everything, so no one has to be online at the same time to stay aligned.
- Capacity is planned—not assumed. Leaders should know what’s on everyone’s plate before assigning more. Tools like resource maps or workload dashboards make this visible. If you’re relying on guesswork, you’re likely overloading someone.
- Redundancy is healthy. Every key process should have a backup—not just for emergencies, but for rest. No one should feel like the whole system hinges on them being online.
- Recovery is built in. Great teams don’t just push hard—they know when to pause. Automattic, Zapier, and Buffer all normalize full disconnection: real vacations, no pinging during off-hours, and wellness stipends that are actually used.
In short, you don’t scale remote teams by hiring harder workers. You scale by building better systems that make good work repeatable, not exhausting.
In the long run, sustainable systems outperform short bursts of brilliance. Every time.
Leading remotely isn’t a constraint.
Remote leadership demands more than systems and check-ins. It asks you to communicate with clarity, earn trust without proximity, and show up in a way that keeps your team aligned, even when no one’s in the same room.
That’s not just a shift in how you manage. It’s a shift in how you express what you stand for.
And if you’re building a company—or a reputation—on that kind of leadership, the way you show up externally should reflect it too.
At Column, we help leaders share how they lead—through content that feels true to their values and shows the kind of culture they’re building every day.
We handle content strategy, LinkedIn presence, and strategic messaging so your voice stays clear, consistent, and credible as you grow
Johnson is a Copywriter at Column, helping brands tell their stories with clear, impactful content. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
