Virtual management is the supervision, leadership, and maintenance of virtual teams—dispersed work groups that rarely meet face to face. As the number of virtual teams has grown, facilitated by the Internet, globalization, outsourcing, and remote work, the need to manage them has also grown. The challenging task of managing these teams have been made much easier by availability of online collaboration tools, adaptive project management software, efficient time tracking programs and other related systems and tools. This article provides information concerning some of the important management factors involved with virtual teams, and the life cycle of managing a virtual team. Due to developments in information technology within the workplace, along with a need to compete globally and address competitive demands, organizations have embraced virtual management structures. As in face-to-face teams, management of virtual teams is also a crucial component in the effectiveness of the team. However, when compared to leaders of face-to-face teams, virtual team leaders face the following difficulties: (a) logistical problems, including coordination of work across different time zones and physical distances; (b) interpersonal issues, including an ability to establish effective working relationships in the absence of frequent face-to-face communication; and (c) technological difficulties, including finding and learning to use appropriate technology. In global virtual teams, there is an additional dimension of cultural differences which impact on a virtual team's functioning.
Management factors For the team to reap the benefits mentioned above, the manager considers the following factors.
Trust and leader effectiveness A virtual team leader must ensure a feeling of trust among all team members—something all team members have an influence on and must be aware of. However, the team leader is responsible for this in the first place. Team leaders must ensure a sense of psychological safety within a team by allowing all members to speak honestly and directly, but respectfully, to each other. For a team to succeed, the manager must schedule meetings to ensure participation. This carries over to the realm of virtual teams, but in this case these meetings are also virtual. Due to the difficulties of communicating in a virtual team, it is imperative that team members attend meetings. The first team meeting is crucial and establishes lasting precedents for the team. Furthermore, there are numerous features of a virtual team environment that may impact on the development of follower trust. The team members have to trust that the leader is allocating work fairly and evaluating team members equally. An extensive study conducted over 8 years examined what factors increase leader effectiveness in virtual teams. One such factor is that virtual team leaders need to spend more time than conventional team counterparts being explicit about expectations. This is due to the patterns of behavior and dynamics of interaction which are unfamiliar. Moreover, even in information rich virtual teams using video conferencing, it is hard to replicate the rapid exchange of information and cues available in face-to-face discussions. To develop role clarity within virtual teams, leaders should focus on developing: (a) clear objectives and goals for tasks; (b) comprehensive milestones for deliverables; and (c) communication channels for seeking feedback on unclear role guidance. When determining an effective way of leadership for a culturally diverse team there are various ways: directive (from directive to participatory), transactional (rewarding) or transformational influence. Leadership must ensure effective communication and understanding, clear and shared plans and task assignments and collective sense of belonging in team. Further, the role of a team leader is to coordinate tasks and activities, motivate team members, facilitate collaboration and solve conflicts when needed. This proofs that a team leader's role in effective virtual team management and creating knowledge sharing environment is crucial.
Presence and instruction Virtual team leaders must become virtually present so they can closely monitor team members and note changes that might affect their ability to undertake their tasks. Due to the distributed nature of virtual teams, team members have less awareness of the wider situation of the team or dynamics of the overall team environment. Consequently, as situations change in a virtual team environment, such as adjustments to task requirements, modification of milestones, or changes to the goals of the team, it is important that leaders monitor followers to ensure they are aware of these changes and make amendments as required. The leaders of virtual teams do not possess the same powers of physical observation, and have to be creative in setting up structures and processes so that variations from expectations can be observed well virtually (for instance, virtual team leaders have to sense when "electronic" silence means acquiescence rather than inattention). At the same time, leaders of virtual teams cannot assume that members are prepared for virtual meetings and also have to ensure that the unique knowledge of each distributed person on the virtual team is fully utilized. Virtual team leaders should be aware that information overload may result in situations when a leader has provided too much information to a team member.
Virtuality Finally, when examining virtual teams, it is crucial to consider that they differ in terms of their virtuality. Virtuality refers to a continuum of how "virtual" a team is. There are three predominant factors that contribute to virtuality, namely: (a) the richness of communication media; (b) distance between team members, both in time zones and geographical dispersion; and (c) organizational and cultural diversity.
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
