Leading virtual teams
In virtual teams, people from different cultures and locations work with one another. They can share their knowledge, their experience and their ideas, and work towards their goals in a shared collaboration space.
For leadership at a distance and remote management to succeed, measures that create a sense of identity help: team development both face to face and virtually, social networking, building trust and motivation. Topics such as role clarification, a regular exchange of information, clear feedback loops and conflict management under remote conditions give team members their bearings. Continuous stakeholder and interface management, and building competence in virtual communication through to intercultural competence and diversity, are further useful aspects. Drawing up an individual roadmap can give both the remote team and its leader practical guidance and further orientation.
Virtual teams – the potential
Virtual teams are becoming ever more important in the digital world of the 21st century. Practice shows that virtual teamwork between managers, project leaders and staff at different sites of your organisation brings challenges of its own, and that good technology alone will not solve them. People from different cultures and professional worlds can communicate around the clock, share their knowledge, their experience and their ideas, and work towards their goals in a shared collaboration space. For this to succeed, leadership at a distance, remote management and virtual teamwork need to be handled professionally.
The challenge
Whether virtual collaboration succeeds or fails depends to a large degree on the leadership competence of managers, team leaders and project leaders, and on how they understand their team. Leading people who live in different worlds and who may never have met in person is a complex task. How do I find the right leadership style? What do team members expect of me? How can closeness and trust arise virtually? Which media should people use to communicate with one another? How can I convince and influence, how can I motivate and how do I reward commitment and performance? How does the team deal with mistakes, criticism and conflict? Which cultural differences shape leadership and teamwork?
What we offer
Developing leadership competence for virtual teams
We start by analysing your personal challenges and then work out solutions and courses of action together with you. The topics we cover range
- from self-management, personal leadership style and performance management
- through role clarification, building trust, team development, stakeholder and interface management and virtual communication
- to aspects such as intercultural competence, diversity, motivation, feedback and conflict management under remote conditions.
In doing so we also answer the question of what is different about virtual teams and what they have in common with “normal” ones.
In training courses, consulting or coaching, and with the help of concepts, models, checklists and plenty of practical exercises, you draw up an individual roadmap that gives the remote team and its leader practical guidance and orientation.