Emojis are a communication-enriching tool in remote and hybrid leadership

In my experience, a leader’s greatest impact on their team is not really in the few grand moments of leadership, like when presenting bold visions or creating innovative strategies.

To be sure, these are important too, but they are far outweighed by the hundreds of small, daily interactions we have with our teams, each of which impacts the team member and the relationship.

In the office, these small moments comprise things like coffee machine chats and hallway encounters, desk catch-ups and conversations over lunch.

But the less time you spend at the office, the more these opportunities disappear. When you’re a remote leader, what you’re left with are basically two categories of interactions with your team: Zoom calls and all kinds of written communication, such as instant messages, emails, or comments in documents.

So, like it or not, these are the media through which you as a leader can influence your team, for better or for worse. It is here—in writing and meetings—that remote leadership actually lives.

And of these two, written communication tends to be far more frequent. Even pre-pandemic statistics indicated that office workers sent some kind of written message to a team member at least 50-100 times a day. And that number has no doubt only increased with the rise of working from home.

Thanks to this volume, any strength or weakness in your written communication will be amplified through sheer repetition.

As a medium for professional communication, writing has some clear benefits. You can, for example, add links to resources, or even a graph to better illustrate a point. What’s more, the conversation is automatically captured for later reference, so you can easily remind yourself of what was discussed.

Perhaps most importantly though, it’s an asynchronous process, meaning that you have time to think about your responses. This last benefit is the primary reason why I love writing: it gives me time to think through my message instead of just spewing out whatever comes to mind first.

But even I have to admit the medium has its weaknesses too. Perhaps the greatest of these is that it lacks non-verbal information like facial expressions, gestures, and intonation. These play an oft-underappreciated part in our communication, particularly in clarifying our intentions and emotional tone. As a result, written messages are easily misunderstood, which can provoke conflict, erode trust, and hinder collaboration within the team.

Psychologist and author Daniel Goleman studied this phenomenon in emails. He discovered that for every email you write, the recipient tends to interpret it as one degree more hostile than you intended. So when you send a positive message, the other person will read its tone as neutral. And if you send a neutral one, it will seem negative.

Of course, the same mechanics apply when they respond to you, so the conversation can easily escalate into hostility, without any ill will on the side of either party.

Literally no-one wants this.

So, how can you adapt your writing to avoid these misunderstandings? If only there were some easy way of clarifying your intent and emotional tone in writing. Perhaps, for example, a set of symbols with facial expressions that you could add to your message?

You may notice that they’re a little blunt, like maybe the sender is somehow annoyed or displeased?

Let’s see what happens when we add in one of the most versatile emojis around: the sweat smile.

As you can see, the tone becomes more light and playful—something that says: “Hey, we’re on the same side here.” Compared to the previous messages, these are far more likely to receive a constructive response. What’s more, they signal to the other person that you respect them and care about the relationship, both of which are crucial factors in leading someone successfully.

Of course, if you’ve never used emojis in a work context before, it may not be obvious how you can get started. You may even feel anxious about it. What if you get it wrong? Say you want to tell someone you enjoyed some delicious aubergine for lunch, but then the conversation takes on an unexpectedly strange tone?

In general, it’s best to start with simple and safe smiling faces, such as 😊😅& 🥳. Make your intent as unambiguous as possible, and avoid irony—it’s so easy to misunderstand, and misunderstandings are the very thing you’re trying to avoid.

The good news is that when you start using emojis in your text, you’ll start receiving more of them in return too, and this helps you pick up the prevalent style. And if someone uses an emoji you don’t understand, search for it online or just ask the person what they meant—there’s no shame in that either.

This learning journey will continue throughout your career, because typically, every company and team has its own unique, constantly evolving emoji culture.

And finally, do yourself a favor and look up the keyboard shortcut for inserting emojis wherever you need them. This makes it much faster and less arduous to use them, which in turn makes it more likely that you actually will.

And if you’d like to go even deeper and also learn leadership habits and tools around other key aspects of great hybrid leadership—good remote meetings, building trust, and offering clarity—consider joining the next cohort of Ben’s course: Hybrid Leadership Habits on Maven.