High Touch Leadership in a High-Tech World

How do we lead others more effectively today when we are so heavily reliant on technology? This is a great question that all leaders should work to answer for themselves. Today, more of our employees work remotely. Teams are spread across a large campus, or they work from home and may never be physically located in the same space. High-touch leadership is an effective style in today’s world. Emphasizing high-touch leadership means fostering personal connections despite physical distances.

The ever-changing High-Tech landscape

The world has changed, hasn’t it? I have been an entrepreneur since 2006. However, before this, all the employees I was responsible for leading were co-located with me in the same offices. I was in the Army for several years, and my team was with me. Then, while leading in the hospital, my team was with me, employing principles of high touch leadership.

Today, we have tools allowing us to work from anywhere and work with others located all around the globe. As an entrepreneur, I now have people working with me from thousands of miles away. I am in Arkansas, but have virtual partners in Canada, New York, Florida, and California. I have worked with teams in England and have used resources from Fiverr to help me create branding for my business. Practicing high touch leadership has been key in maintaining these connections.

Why does all this matter? Leadership of others requires the ability to be high-touch. The foundation of leadership is trust, and trust is built over time in a relationship of consistent communication. This is the essence of high touch leadership, ensuring that connections remain strong.

The Right Balance

In my consulting work as a leadership coach and trainer, I see leaders today who rely too much on technology and not enough on the relationship. As leaders, we want more from them. However, we are not giving more of ourselves to them. Technology is a tool to help us communicate and share information more quickly, but leadership requires us to connect with others in a personal relationship.

One of my mentors is John Maxwell. He wrote a book titled Everyone Communicates, Few Connect. This is a vital shift we must understand. We must then make it as leaders. Especially leaders working in the tech space, where maybe your comfort zone is behind the computer screen and using your keyboard to communicate.

Connecting with others means we have their attention. Communicating is just words coming out of our mouths, but maybe no one hears them. This happens with my teenagers a lot, but I digress.

 “Do you understand the words coming out of my mouth?” – Chris Tucker in the Movie Rush Hour

He was talking to Jackie Chan and not connected with him, so there was no understanding, no trust, no relationship. This is why high-touch leadership is so necessary, bridging gaps in understanding.

On my Podcast, Episode 156, I share some ideas on how to connect versus just talk to people. Emphasizing high-touch leadership in such contexts can greatly enhance understanding.

Leaders Nurture Relationships

When we have a relationship with those we lead, it means we have a connection. We have built trust, and we have a collaboration between us so we can excel in our roles as individual contributors to our cause.

So, how do we do this in this high-tech world? How do we become a high-touch leader when maybe it’s not our strength? Let me be honest for a moment. My strength is not in building relationships. My strength is getting things done and moving forward. I had to learn to build relationships with others and connect with them before asking for their help in my goals, which is an essential component of high-touch leadership.

I learned from Zig Ziglar. When we help others get more of what they want, they will, in turn, help us get more of what we want. The only way you can help them is to slow down and seek to connect, seek to understand, and seek to learn about them as a person before you give orders to them about your next task.

To build this trust and relationship, we must be intentional in connecting ourselves with those we lead. Today, we have the technology to literally connect all over the world. However, we must quit relying on email and texting as our primary way to lead.

Texting is fantastic. I highly recommend you text motivational messages to your teams or words of encouragement every day. But do not rely on this as the only way to connect. Here are a few ideas I have implemented in my leadership roles.

Set up Zoom or other virtual communication meetings where you can see their face. Make this a requirement. I recommend at least one of these virtual meetings each month with your teams. This gives you a chance to bring them all together and coach them up, encourage them, and let them learn from one another.

Be intentional with this meeting and make sure it is a value-added time together, and not a complaint session. Otherwise, people will not want to show up.

Also, you can connect with your team on Facebook. Create a private group just for you to share things with one another privately if this works for your team. I use this all the time, as well as LinkedIn Groups, too.

Also, this is a little thing, but it will mean a lot to those you lead. Know the birthdate and work anniversary date of everyone on your team. Go buy cards for every one of your employees right now. Then put these dates on your calendar as a reminder to send them or give them this thank you or birthday card.

The Options are Yours

There are so many ways to connect with your followers today. You must be smart, and you must be intentional to use the technology you have available. Don’t be like most leaders and stick to email as your only way to communicate, be a difference maker and connect with them in many ways. Employ high-touch leadership to bridge technology with personal relationships.

All the research tells us that the number one thing our employees want today is better communication with their leaders and more connection to the purpose.

When you do this, you will be seen as a high-touch leader in a high-tech world.