The past two years have been a challenge for everyone, worldwide. Especially for us leaders.

Organisations with a very rigid hierarchy were the ones struggling the most. This volatile, uncertain and complex world showed us that flexibility and strong connections are a huge help.

Here are a few characteristics I see in great virtual connected leaders.

#1 You cannot lead everything:

You become the bottleneck. Making everything depend on you, will hurt everyone that is around you, and even yourself. Working in a digitally connected world needs smart networks so solve and address complex issues. Learn how to delegate.

#2 Perfection is the enemy: 

Speed trumps perfection. A problem, within leaders and in our societies in general, is that we are afraid of making mistakes. Everyone is afraid of the consequence of error. But the greatest error is not to move. The greatest error is to be paralyzed by the fear of failure. Staying curious is more important than taking months to perfect something.

#3 Build connections: 

As you can't do it all on your own, it is super important to build a very strong network of peers, advisors and colleagues. People that you can rely on to help you with various topics. Having a diverse, knowledgeable, and experienced group of people becomes critical in today's world.

#4 Serve! Don't Tell: 

Be a servant to your teams and people around you. How can you help them achieve the big goals together? Being empathetic and learning how to ask questions are skills that will forever help you along your way.

Virtual Leadership should be a temporary privilege and a permanent responsibility.