Did leading by example become useless in 2022 and fully remote teams?

Bootstrapping a software development company from 0 to 80 employees, in the last 10 years, was full of hard leadership lessons shaping my leadership style. I always believed that actions are more important than words, thus leading by example felt like a natural path for me.

As an introvert, I preferred to show rather than tell, and help instead of just saying "I care about you".

Then the pandemic started, and we switched from hybrid to fully remote work.

I've noticed that knowing each other and building trust, aligning on goals, and sharing intentions become harder and required more time. It was especially true with new coworkers (we kept growing 30-40% year to year).

I believe it took longer because there were fewer interactions, more async communications, fewer chances for talks unrelated to work over lunch or coffee, and fewer opportunities to see me working, making decisions, etc.

Does it mean that not every leadership style is efficient/optimized for remote work?

Or maybe the "example" part of "leading by example" has to be redefined with a focus on intentionally creating opportunities "to show actions"? Opportunities we took for granted, as they naturally happened when worked from the office.

The part of leading by example about behaving consistently with values is still true and important. And actually should be true for any style of leadership.

What is your leadership style, and how did it change when working fully remotely?