5 Tips & Tricks in Shaping Up a Virtual Team.

1. intelligence
MANAGEMENT
Leading the virtual team
Modern-day leaders are faced with the challenge of leading teams of employees
spread throughout the globe. Virtual leadership skills are now a necessity, particu-
larly since face-to-face meetings are not always a viable option. Michael Kossler,
senior enterprise associate for the Center for Creative Leadership, recognizes
and comments on crucial skills for the virtual leader:
1 Learn to be comfortable with distance and time zones. Many leaders try to treat remote
“An effective virtual leader rotates
employees the same way as local employees. Leaders of virtual teams need to be com- the time frames when conference
fortable with not being able to “control” employees who are not in the same geographic calls for team meetings are going
location or time zone as they are. Leaders need to be comfortable with the concept that to be held so that the same people
employees are working even if management is not able to observe them directly.
are not always inconvenienced.”
2 Practice the art of delegation. Delegating
tasks to remote employees helps them
feel connected to the rest of the work
3 Stay in touch with your remote employees. To avoid the “out-of-sight” syndrome,
schedule regular times to talk by phone and email short updates with corporate
office news to keep the employees connected with the larger group.
group. Delegating also allows a leader to
know what employees are working on. To “Things such as decreases in input, offering ideas and suggestions,
increase effectiveness of delegated work, and comments, either in virtual team meetings, or just simply
leaders should make sure that they are
through email, a decrease in asking questions, seeking clarification,
communicating clear time frames and
goals. less contact from the individual, either by email or phone, indicates
that a person has gone to the ‘virtual screensaver.’”
“When it comes to delegation,
the general guideline is that
the more everyone knows
about who is working on what, 4 Make sure you have a full
perspective before mak-
ing a decision. Perspective
“Do you want compliance or commit-
ment? If all you want is compliance,
and not necessarily support, then you
the more people feel connected starts with recognizing the
limits of your own point can make the decision easily. But if
and better positioned to sup-
of view and then soliciting commitment is important and you
port each other and the team the input of others. Practice
really need people to be in alignment
as a whole.” listening and do not
respond until your employ- with you, then you have got to engage
ees are finished talking. them in the decision-making process.”
5
illustration by Andy Levine/theispot.com
Be prepared to adapt your leadership style to “When it comes to leading across cultures, the burden falls
different cultures. It is increasingly likely that
upon the leader to be sensitive to differences in the concept of
you will have an employee that is either from
another culture or lives in another country.
leadership, to understand what type of guidance and direction
Cultural adaptability rests on your ability to deal is expected, and then to begin adapting to some of that. That
with the stress that results when you encounter doesn’t mean compromising values, but it’s more incumbent
something that is different or feels strange.
upon the leader to make adjustments than the follower.”
—Contributed by Michelle Allen, editorial assistant for Associations Now. Email: mallen@asaecenter.org
18 Associations Now May 2008