#352 Wayne Turmel: Leading Without Micromanaging in the Hybrid Mess
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What is long-distance leadership and why is it important?
Today, I'm sitting down with Wayne Turmal to dive into a crucial topic, long-distance leadership, in an era where communication technology is rapidly evolving for both workers and leaders. Yes, you heard that right. Long-distance leadership, not long-distance relationships. For just like with any relationship, maintaining, nurturing, and fixing long-distance leadership is far from straightforward. This conversation couldn't be more timely. When we recorded this episode, Amazon's CEO had just announced that their RTO return to office policy for 2025. And so far, the media narrative surrounding it hasn't been exactly positive. So how can Wang and his team provide solutions as remote and hybrid work models continue to change shape? Let's find out.
Thank you for having me.
How did Wayne Turmel become an expert in remote leadership?
This is really exciting, Vince. Wayne, let's start with a bit of your background. How does your past experiences make you the perfect fit to write several books about long-distance leadership and communication for leaders?
Yeah, absolutely. I'm going to intentionally stop myself from going down to Pet Your Rabbit holes because it has been a long winding trip. But the short answer is that I'm originally from Canada while I was in school studying journalism as a stage performer and eventually, like most stage performers, had to get a real job in the real world. And I started in the presentation skills arena because I learned at the age of eight how powerful it was to be able to communicate. That the number one factor in how you're perceived as an executive, as an employee, is your ability to communicate. I was always fascinated by that. And that's where I started from. And I started in traditional stand at the front of the room presentation skills.
But about 20 years ago, realized that electronic communication at the time, WebEx was the main tool. was going to change how we work and so while i was teaching and studying leadership and other things the electronic communication really became my focus so i've been studying that for over 20 years and then About 10 years ago, Devin Eikenberry and I merged. He bought my company. We merged his expertise with traditional, what we think of as leadership skills, and my expertise in the remote and electronic world. We now have, three books later, established ourselves really as leaders in the field, if that doesn't sound too arrogant. I was just going to say, the big thing for me is that I learned so early that how you communicate is how you're perceived.
And so many people are subject matter experts. They're incredibly smart, but they struggle taking what's in their head and putting it in the minds of their customers, their employees, and other people. As consultants, you know your business. My job is to help you communicate that to the world.
What exactly does long-distance leadership mean? How would you define it?
What does long-distance leadership mean in a historical context?
Yeah, we get awfully hung up on, are my people remote? Are they in the office? Long distance leadership is taking what we know makes good leaders and always has and applying it when you are not always or sometimes ever in the same physical space as the people that you lead. And it's funny because there has always been some version of long distance leadership. Genghis Khan ruled half the world. and never held a WebEx meeting. Julius Caesar did great out in the field. It's when he went back to the office that things went a little bit pear-shaped. So we've always had to find ways to do this. And as technology has changed over the years, it's becoming both more common and easier, technically easier to do. But technology changes how we as humans communicate.
And so if we aren't aware of those dynamics, it's very easy to get stressed or even lost in the weeds and not do the things that we know leaders need to do. The role of long distance leader It's not so much what you do, because if you think about the roles of a leader, a manager, an entrepreneur, you need to hire, you need to train, you need to delegate, you need to coach. Yep.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is long-distance leadership and why is it important?
0:38–2:19
2
How did Wayne Turmel become an expert in remote leadership?
2:19–5:13
3
What does long-distance leadership mean in a historical context?
5:13–8:26
4
How has remote leadership evolved in recent years?
8:26–13:08
5
What challenges does hybrid work present to leaders?
13:08–16:41
6
What updates are included in the second edition of Wayne's book?
16:41–19:32
7
Why are current hybrid work strategies often flawed?
19:32–31:46
Speakers
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