Leading at a Distance

Introduction: The Virtual Revolution

At the start, we were all operating on adrenaline.

When the COVID-19 global pandemic broke in early 2020, millions of organizations and hundreds of millions of employees shifted on a dime to working remotely. A can-do spirit set in individually and collectively, fueled by the once-in-a-generation sense of shared humanity, driving people around the world to adapt and perform at unimaginably high levels of productivity. Employee engagement scores increased as CEOs and corporate leaders stepped up and communicated with much greater frequency, transparency, and authenticity than they had felt appropriate before the crisis set in. And a great many office workers, powered by Zoom, Teams, WebEx, and BlueJeans, quickly found joys in working from home and eliminating the grind of the daily commute and business travel.

A year later, much of this novelty had washed away.

This is not only about Zoom burnout. Fear and uncertainty about the virus and the resulting global economic collapse, concerns about the well-being of loved ones, and job insecurity were further exacerbated by the many other afflictions of Annus Horribilis 2020. The all-too-well-known list includes historic levels of political polarization, nationwide protests over racial injustice ignited by the killing of George Floyd, and record-destructive wildfires throughout the West Coast of the United States, just to name a few. And the work-from-home (WFH) trend, which was a part of many ...