Timely is synonymous with appropriate, auspicious, being in service or useful, without delay, and convenient.  Timely responding is really about being in service to others and encouraging positivity through respect.

Timely responding impacts others’ views of your capability, responsibility, and commitment to your work.

And, unsurprisingly, research shows that untimely responding can lead to negative perceptions of leaders and team members.

What does this mean in terms of leading a virtual team?:

1)   Be timely in your response:  Respond promptly with your ideas and concerns and answer team members questions and comments quickly.

2)   Provide reasonable timelines: Timelines of less than 1 day enrage team members.  Talk to your team members in advance and ask them how long it takes to typically get a specific task done.  Arrange timelines accordingly.

3)   Provide timely feedback: After receiving work or ideas from your team share your opinions, direction, and ideas promptly.  You’re modeling behavior for your team.

The longer you take to respond to your team members’ feedback, input, or completed assignments the more you risk looking less credible in their eyes.  If you’re unable to respond immediately follow Tim Ferris’ advice and create an autoresponder explaining why you’re unavailable, provide an alternative contact, and when you will be available to respond.

To be fair, when team members don’t respond in a timely manner, team leaders equate this with lack of motivation.  The best leaders move their teams forward and do not allow non-responsive team members to sway progress.  Waiting can have a negative impact on the performance of the entire team.

If someone’s, running behind, or failing to respond, don’t wait. Give them the opportunity to step-up and catch-up and set boundaries for acceptable performance on your team.