Role of remote leadership in managing challenges of virtual teams

Role of remote leadership in managing
challenges of virtual teams
Rashmi Barade
PMP, CSM
IP Infusion Software India

2|P a g e
Role of remote leadership in managing challenges of virtual teams
Contents
Abstract ..............................................................................................................3
1.0 Content......................................................................................................4
2.0 Conclusion................................................................................................ 11
3.0 References ............................................................................................... 12
About the author ............................................................................................... 14

3|P a g e
Abstract
In today’s age of Information and Technology, where the whole world has shrunk to
become a global village, virtual teams are increasingly becoming a reality for many
companies. Technologies and business requirements both allow and demand
distance working like never before. This comes with increasing challenges in
managing teams consisting of people who are based in dispersed geographical
locations, coming from different cultural backgrounds, speaking different languages
and were raised in different countries with different value systems. But these
constraints do not necessarily result in a drop in performance. In fact, it can lead to
increased efficiency and better business results if the dispersion is managed such
that it becomes a valuable advantage, rather than a crippling liability. In this report I
have discussed how remote leadership, which is the essence of leading teams at
multiple locations, need to organise these globally dispersed teams and build trust
when their team members rarely come face to face. Also, which techniques bridge
cultural, linguistic and geographical distances – not to mention time zones and when
do cultural differences produce creativity rather than crossed wires. In short, this
paper outlines how the remote leadership can maximize the benefits of dispersion
while minimizing its challenges by implementing strategies to increase collaboration,
trust and team effectiveness.

4|P a g e
1.0 Content
It is myth that virtual teams do not succeed as they are unproductive and are
dysfunctional for any organisation. A survey1
conducted by RW3 CultureWizard,
where 600 employees of various multinational companies participated, the statistics
proves otherwise. 80% of respondents reported that they were part of a team with
people based in different locations, of which 63% indicated that nearly half of their
teams were located outside their home country. 98% of them say that the virtual
teams are successful and/or somewhat successful. With the remaining 2% who
believe they are unsuccessful, shows that there is scope of improvement w.r.t
effective leadership.
Virtual team is a common answer to budgetary problems in a challenging
economy and work/life balance issues that has long been a concern of Human
Resource managers11;18
. Estimates of cost savings begin at least at $2,000 per
employee14
and range to IBM’s estimation of $100 million per year, as a result of its
42% remotely located workforce19
. In addition to savings in the tangible costs
associated with working remotely, virtual teams do not use a workspace or amenities
and create less commute-related pollution and for which companies and tax payers
have traditionally incurred a financial burden12
. In addition to costs, the reasons that
compelled organizations to adapt to the virtual team model are:
- Better utilisation of worldwide best resource pool.
This is particularly important for large corporations like General Electric, IBM, and
SAP that have research labs and Centre of Excellences scattered around the
world.
- Continuous product development by taking advantage of the time zone
difference.
This reduces the cycle time of projects by shrewd use of a "follow the sun"
schedule.
- Flexibility to quickly form teams in order to adapt to the rapid change in Business
and technology.
- Reduce process losses associated with stereotyping, personality conflicts, power,
politics and cliques commonly experienced by face-to-face teams.
The essence that helps organizations succeed in this virtual model is the remote
leadership, that needs to drive this effectively though three C’s – Collaboration,
Communication and Connection. Managing virtual teams mean managing the whole
spectrum of communication strategies and project management techniques as well
as human and social processes in ways that support the team. It requires the finesse
and skill of managing team that is dispersed in geography and culture. Based on

5|P a g e
PMI’s study of 40 US government organizations, the top success factors in
managing the virtual teams are developing a Culture of Communication, Executive
support and well defined Roles and Responsibility. Some of the key challenges in
managing virtual teams are:
1. Establishing rapport and trust
This is one of the greatest challenges in creating a successful virtual team. Trust is
critical for unblocking communication between members and sustaining motivation of
each person involved. It is the “glue of global workplace”.
2. Team dispersion
Some of the most common challenging issues related to dispersion are:
a. Time zone differences
b. Cultural differences
c. Inability to read non-verbal cues
d. Inability to connect on a personal level.
3. Sense of Isolation
Never in the history of business have we been so in-touch with technology and
out-of-touch on a personal level at the same time. Falling levels of connectedness in
our organisation are a major threat to our future.
4. Absence of informal interactive learning
There are various methods and tools that will help remote management to
overcome the challenges they are facing with their virtual teams. The investment
in terms of ‘quality time’ with their team members is what the remote management
ought to do, in order to reap benefits of the growing virtual model. Some of the
methods and tools are discussed here with instances of various industries adapting
them successfully.
1. Build Trust
The best way to build performance across distance is to foster trust-based
relationships. Some of the lessons learnt from Sabre5
on building trust are – rapid
responses to electronic communications from team members, establishing norms
around communication pattern, reliable performance and consistent follow-
through. Having periodic, one-to-one meetings with the team accelerates the
bonding between the individuals.

6|P a g e
Some of the other techniques are:
a. Exchanging information
This doesn’t mean flooding of information, but sharing information. Some of the
best practices by the organisations are - to mandate that every virtual team member
undergoes cross-cultural trainings and to ensure that there are opportunities to
meet face-to-face by encouraging team members to participate in events like
conferences and yearly/quarterly get together.
Forwarding information, memo and FYI items via emails, conducting
knowledge sharing sessions, having the informal water cooler talks about family,
holidays, common hobbies etc. over the social media are some of the other ways to
build trust.
b. Celebrate progress and milestones
As leaders, provide opportunities to celebrate successes and provide recognition
on an ongoing basis. Encourage all team members to take initiative in recognizing
accomplishments and contributions of those in other locations. David Shor,
Founder of Placementsmedia, and his management team believe in expressing
appreciation and rewarding people for a job well done, particularly as his company
goes through period of growth. He extends this company culture to employees who
don't have the benefit of on-site camaraderie by taking the time to call or write to
them and give a virtual pat on the back.
2. Core competency
Managers should emphasize on selecting the right candidate to form virtual
teams. The candidate should have strong balance between technical knowledge and
social skills. They should to be adaptable, well organized, and flexible. Their
psychological profile should be characterized by low levels of neuroticism, resilience,
extroversion, and self-confidence. Further, they should always be open to new
experiences and opportunities, to socialize10
and are highly self-motivated9
.
Following selection methods can be used:
- Behavioural interviewing techniques and simulation as part of the selection
process.

7|P a g e
- Using panels of current virtual team members to conduct interviews. This
approach has the additional benefit of building support and facilitating
socialization of the newly selected virtual team member.
Organisations should also focus on the leadership qualities remote managers
must possess to be successful. Managers must be organized and act as
facilitators for the virtual team members to interact.
3. Paradigm Shift
The remote management needs a shift in the mind set, from task oriented trust
to a relationship oriented trust. Today’s mantra is “Manage by results, Not by
Activity”. If employee values his relationship with his manager, this promotes good
work ethic and quality work. This is by far the most important factor as employees
and managers constantly communicate with each other.
A manager’s performance is linked to their accountability and their
trustworthiness, their performance also influences how committed employees are;
a manager’s influence can promote not just trust and commitment, but an intrinsic
enjoyment of the work as well as heightened productivity.
4. Mindful Communication
a. Clarity on Team goals
Remote leader must constantly align the team and keep them
headed in one direction by forming strategic goals of the team. This
reminds team members about purpose (as well as goals, tasks,
milestones, objectives) as part of the daily fabric of their
communication.
b. Clarity on Roles and Responsibilities, Accountability
Remote leader must objectively define and clarify individual roles &
responsibilities. Insist that each member be explicit about his/her
expectations of others in the team. This puts every member in the
team at ease giving no room for ambiguity.
The sense of accountability is the key in the game. The leader should
empower the team so that they feel ‘engaged’. It is essential that the
company culture must foster enough trust to allow employees to make

8|P a g e
autonomous decisions9
. This in turn fosters creativity and “out of the
box” thinking. Empowered employees with the ability to manage their
own careers will exhibit the highest levels of engagement20
.
The leaders should always ensure that they keep revisiting
periodically the team goals, roles and responsibilities,
expectations and accountabilities. One manager at Pfizer Global
Pharmaceuticals uses a “check-in process” to solicit a statement from
his employees and assess daily where they stand in progress towards
their goals and how they feel about their current projects11
.
c. Encourage and facilitate ‘Engagement and Interaction’
Humans are social animals; we need social engagement to fill us up
and make us feel connected. Remote leaders need to encourage their
teams to use the collaboration tools and technology to interact in
order to eliminate the feeling of isolation and give them a sense of
community, thus increasing the productivity.
Social networking has become a popular way for employees to feel
more engaged. Other than internal networking tools, LinkedIn and
Facebook groups on the internet have also become popular ways for
employees to connect with one another. Currently 65% of professionals
report that they engage in social networking and 52% of companies
report that their motivation in encouraging social networking is
specifically to keep local and remote employees engaged. Internal
blogs and Podcasting (especially from top leaders) have also become
popular as a form of communicating the goals and expectations of
upper management8
.
Caroline Green, Principal of IvanExpert, a Mac-focused IT support and
consulting firm, finds that giving her team access to collaboration and
document sharing tools goes a long way in keeping everyone
focused. Instead of walking through presentations over the phone, she
chooses to use programs like Join.me, GoToMeeting or WebEx so
that she can move through material point by point without losing
anybody. She also tries to avoid the confusion of having multiple
versions of documents emailed back and forth by leveraging tools like
GoogleDocs and DropBox. And of course, shared calendar programs
like iCloud offer an easy way for the whole team to keep track of
important milestones and meetings.
There are several online tools like timeandate.com that enable virtual
teams to organise their meetings.

9|P a g e
Leaders should also foster a Mentor-protégé relationship that gives
isolated team members a sense of inclusion.
Encourage ‘Ideation’ from all team members. Ensure that every idea
presented is taken seriously and gets a fair hearing.
d. Incorporate In-person connection (Emotional Intelligence)
As remote leaders, we need to tap the potential of human spirit,
appeal to everyone’s need to feel good about their work; each other;
sense of belongingness and achieving extraordinary results. It is
the human dimension that distinguishes extraordinary teams from
mediocre teams and it is the human dimension that is most strained by
distance2
.
Managers must make time for personal interaction to compensate for
the impersonal means of communication21
. It is important that
managers always make themselves available for contact from their
remote employees13
. A manger should spend 70-80% time tending to
needs and relationships of virtual team members, only then will remote
members view the split as 50-50.
e. Explain “what’s in it for me”
It is a human psychology that humans keep searching for opportunities
for growth. If an employee realizes that there is little to no chance for
promotion or recognition of their work despite trying their best, it will be
a devastating blow to their level of engagement. During the regular
engagements with the team member, the leader should foster
ongoing emotional commitment by acknowledging connections
between personal goals, team goals and overall “value proposition”.
5. Feedback and support
A manager should make a special point to acknowledge the contributions of
remote employees. Communicating constructive formal feedback remotely forces
managers to do more research, collect and analyse all of the relevant facts, and
carefully craft messages. Informal feedback also becomes critical in
engagement17
.The team members must know that their work is being noticed and is
critical to the group effort11
.

10|P a g e
6. Define Workflow processes (Procedural metrics) & Measurable
processes (Productivity metrics)
The organization needs to define policies and guidelines on the functioning of
the virtual teams. Various trainings at different levels of the org-structure need to
be established to ensure everybody understands the workflow in this model.
However, providing lot of information dump and micro managing is not quite the
essence here. Develop total communication system, and agree with the team on
formats and standards for response time.
Performance management is most effective when management and employees
agree on how performance will be assessed and measured17
. Managing via
technology can become demanding, but when a remotely-located employee has
clarity on their manager’s expectations and is confident on how they will be
assessed, they will fully enjoy the benefits, telecommuting can offer9
. Managers can
facilitate the process by maintaining consistency in their communications and
actions towards their team.
In addition to objective measure, it is good to track team member behaviour
w.r.t his pro-activeness during the virtual team meetings, internal quality
improvement suggestions, coaching new team members offline and other intangible
actions that enhance team effectiveness.
Using 360 degree performance evaluation that is collected from peers and
sometimes even customers is a good way to supplement the leader’s evaluation of
the team member.

11|P a g e
2.0 Conclusion
Building a productive and efficient virtual team requires foresight, planning,
dedication and hard work. Today, the most effective way to accomplish these goals
is through constant, consistent communication and virtual networking. When a
remote employee is in constant virtual connection with their team, they are more
likely to be committed to the team’s goals16
. Remote employees are more committed
to their own goals through interactive coaching from managers. Managers are also
responsible for creating a virtual environment that replicates the informal
professional development, the company would provide15
. Personal communication
and recognition of accomplished goals are of utmost importance22
. With a constant
stream of communication, display of trust, accountability and commitment from a
dedicated manager, remote employees can reach their maximum potential. We as
leaders are leading the communication environment and we have the power to lead
our teams.

12|P a g e
3.0 References
[1] http://rw-3.com/VTSReportv7.pdf
[2] http://thekennedygroup.com/_pdfs/remote_leadership.pdf
[3] http://sloanreview.mit.edu/the-magazine/2009-summer/50412/how-to-
manage-virtual-teams/
[4] http://www.groupjazz.com/pdf/vteams-toronto.pdf
[5] http://web.merage.uci.edu/~cgibson/Publication%20files/Articles/Five%20Chal
lenges%20to%20Virtual%20Team%20Success.pdf
[6] http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/cahrs/research/whitepapers/upload/Spring10Mtng_R
emoteWorkersEngaged.pdf
[7] Virtual Leadership, Jaclyn Kostner, Warner Books, Inc.,1994
[8] 65% of business professional are logging on to social networking sites.
(2007).
Newsline Article. Retreived March 10, 2010 from the World at Work
organization.
[9] Cisco. (2007). Understanding and Managing the Mobile Workforce.
[10] Conlin, M. (2009, July). Is there a virtual worker personality?
BusinessWeek Online. Retrieved March 10, 2010 from the Business Source
Complete database.
[11] Derven, M. (2007, March). The remote connection: Leading others
from a distance requires set expectations, trust, and unique methods of
evaluation. [Electronic Version] HR Magazine, 52(3), 111-115.
[12] Flemming, L. (1991, October). Computer commuting is catching on.
[Electronic Version] USA Today, 8.
[13] Gerke, S.K. (2006). If I cannot see them, how can I lead them?
Industrial and Commercial Training, 38(2), 102-105.
[14] Hewitt. (2008). Trends in HR and employee benefits: Employers’ try to
ease workers’ commuting pain. Retrieved April 19, 2010 from Hewitt
Associates online.
[15] Kurland, N. B., & Cooper, C. D. (2002). Manager control and
employee isolation in telecommuting environments. Journal of High
Technology Management Research, 13(1), 107-126
[16] Kerber, K. W., & Buono, A. F. (2004). Leadership challenges in global
virtual teams: Lessons from the field. SAM Advanced Management Journal,
69(4), 4-10.
[17] Linkow, P. R. (2008). Meeting the challenges of a dispersed
workforce: Managing across language, culture, time, and location. Retrieved
March 12, 2010 from The Conference Board.
[18] Madsen, S.R. (2003). Work and family conflict can: Can home based
teleworking make a difference? Human Resource Development Quarterly, 14
(1), p35-58

13|P a g e
[19] Mulki, J., Bardhi, F., Lassk, F., & Nanavaty-Dahl, J. (2009). Set up
remote workers to thrive. MIT Sloan Management Review, 51(1), 63-69.
[20] Snell, A. (2009). Tackling the challenges of employee engagement.
Strategic HR Review, 8 (2), 37-38.
[21] Virtual Teams are Routine, but Now Managers Need New Skills.
(2006). Newsline Article. Retrieved March 5, 2010 from the World at Work
organization online.
[22] Whitford, T; Moss, S. (2009). Transformational Leadership in
Distributed work Groups: The Moderating Role of Follower Regulatory Focus
and goal Orientation. Communication Research. 36(6), 810-837.

14|P a g e
About the author
Rashmi Barade
With 8 years of experience working in the IT industry, I have
always been associated with virtual teams. I began my career
with Robert Bosch India, a CMMI L5 company in the
Embedded Automotive domain for Volvo, wherein my effort
was highly appreciated for bridging and making the teams
effective. With my aspiration to learn more, I moved to Nokia
India and handled development and delivery management for
many of the Nokia S60 products (Telecom domain). I am a certified Scrum Master &
PMP. Represented as a package owner for Xmlservices, at Symbian Open Source
World Conference, SEE 2009 held at London. My current assignment is at IP
Infusion Software India, a CMMI L3 company as a Program manager for their ZebOS
Product releases (Datacom domain), where we strive for excellence in delivering
quality product. Personally, I love travelling, trekking, reading and music.

Role of remote leadership in managing challenges of virtual teams

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked (20)

Similar to Role of remote leadership in managing challenges of virtual teams

Similar to Role of remote leadership in managing challenges of virtual teams (20)

Role of remote leadership in managing challenges of virtual teams