By Nionila Ivanova
Managing distributed teams brings much valuable experience. As a project manager and CEO leading a remote team, I’ve learnt which mistakes to avoid. In this article, I’ll share some common leadership mistakes project managers make working remotely, and solutions on how to handle them.
#1 Ineffective Communication
Let’s start with the first and most common problem. It’s communication.
As you will know, communication is the most important soft skill for a project manager as a leader. Meanwhile, when managing a distributed team, many PMs surprisingly lose this skill or use it inconsistently. From my experience, this mistake often begins with the absence of clear communication rules.
Remote teams need more structure. When communication channels aren’t clearly defined by a project manager at the start, people get confused. They aren’t sure where to ask questions or where important decisions should be documented.
For example, project managers often don’t explain when the team should use email tracking tools versus other communication channels, finding the source of truth becomes challenging. Instead of working on the tasks, the team members intuitively try to resolve communication problems on their own.
Communication issues also appear in the number of meetings. Both extremes are harmful. When there are too few meetings, many problems are difficult to solve in writing. Complex topics often require live discussion and regular updates help the team stay aligned.
On the other hand, too many calls can be just as damaging. I’ve seen teams become irritated when leaders schedule calls for simple questions that could be resolved with a short message in a few minutes.
I suggest the following tips to avoid communication mistakes in a distributed team:
- The first step is to standardize how communication works. Because the team should clearly understand which tools are used and for what purpose.
- Being direct and open in communication also matters. Remote teams cannot read body language, so it’s better to say what you need from the team than to assume they will figure it out on their own.
- Limit the number of communication channels. Using too many tools creates noise and splits attention. For example, choose one main channel for daily communication and group discussions by topic.
- Meetings also require structure. As a project manager, it’s important to explain what topics will be discussed and what input you expect from the team.
#2 Micro-management
In project management, micro-management is also quite common, especially in remote teams. In my view, micro-management is closely connected to a lack of trust. Trust plays a critical role in remote work, yet many leaders struggle with it when they cannot see what the team is doing every day or even an hour.
Overcontrol is a serious leadership mistake. It creates the illusion that you are fully involved and trying to help, but in reality this help is often false. Constant check ins, unexpected calls, or frequent questions about what someone is working on rarely support the team.
To avoid micro-management, PMs should develop a mutual respect based on personal time and boundary consideration. In distributed teams, people often work in different time zones and follow different schedules. Someone may be taking a break or focusing deeply on a task. Messages like “What are you working on right now?” usually create frustration rather than clarity.
A more effective approach is to focus on results instead of constant monitoring. Regular daily or weekly calls already provide enough visibility into the work being done.
#3 Avoiding to provide feedback
If feedback is often missing even in office based teams, it becomes also a more common issue in distributed teams. Regular feedback from a leader helps specialists understand their performance and see their progress on tasks. When ignoring this, the team may feel unsure about their value and direction, even if they are doing a job well.
Project managers need to be more attentive and intentional when working remotely. Feedback doesn’t always have to be formal. It can be shared during regular calls, short messages, or simple progress updates on tasks.
What matters is consistency and clarity. Team members should understand what was done well and what can be improved next time.
#4 Ignoring Time Zone Differences
Distributed teams usually bring together people from different parts of the world. It’s almost impossible for such teams to work within the same time zone. Ignoring time zone differences by a project manager leads to many other problems with communication, meetings, or deadlines.
Speaking of solutions, for project managers it’s important to be especially careful when planning work like scheduling meetings without considering local working hours or setting deadlines that don’t reflect real availability.
Additionally, special time zone management tools can be very helpful in this case. Keeping track of everyone’s availability manually is unrealistic, especially as teams grow. These tools make it easier to coordinate meetings and plan deadlines.
Another important practice is defining overlap hours. Even if the team works across different time zones, having a small shared time window helps maintain alignment. This time can be used for critical discussions or quick syncs, while the rest of the work remains asynchronous.
In Conclusion
In this article, I’ve covered only some of the most common leadership mistakes project managers make when working with distributed teams. These are not the only challenges, but they appear often and have a direct impact on team performance and motivation.
About the Author – Nionila Ivanova
As the CEO of IT Creative Labs and creator of IT Project Management Training for women, Nionila exemplifies the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs in the tech industry. Nionila has 15+ years of experience managing tech teams and leading projects with Agile and Waterfall methodologies. PMP Certified and a Certified Scrum Master. Tech Entrepreneur with an MBA in Computer Information Systems.
