UNIT 6:
Effective Leadership for Virtual Teams
MBA 9230 Virtual Teams
August 11, 2004
Over the course of the past several weeks, I have analyzed the topic of Effective Leadership with a focus on evaluating the success of Building Trust through Inspiration. Through this research I have determined that Inspirational leadership is most effective when leading and participating in virtual teams because it has direct correlation to how much trust is garnered, and team cohesiveness and performance is affected.
Leading and working as a part of a virtual team has its own inherent challenges. As explained by Duarte & Snyder, “Virtual teams are more complex than traditional teams because of factors associated with working across time, distance and organizational boundaries and the need to use technology to communicate and collaborate” (Duarte & Snyder, pg. 23). Likewise, www.wikipedia.com further defines a virtual team as a group of individuals who are committed to a common purpose and hold themselves mutually accountable.
Thus, my recommendations to virtual team leaders, based on my weeks of study, are that leaders: Unify the Group’s Efforts and Maximize Time; Be a Good Listener; Model The Way; and Lead By Inspiration.
Recommendation 1:
Virtual Team Leaders Must Unify the Groups Efforts and Maximize Time
As exemplified through a virtual team case study called “Characteristics of Effective Leadership In Graduate Student Collaborative Work”, the most common characteristics of effective leadership were found to not only be interpersonal skills and expertise, but group management and time management (www.findarticles.com). This group encountered needless struggle over defining their direction for a collaborative work assignment. Thus, it’s the leader’s responsibility to gain the trust of the team by making the most efficient use of the group’s time together through the clarification of roles, expectations and project goals....