Leadership Essentials for Effectively Managing Virtual Teams

The global virtual teams are characterized by team members located in different geographies and time zones with information and communication technology tools as the only interface for them to interact. The virtual teams offer unique challenges. In order to overcome these challenges and unleash the creativity and potential of all the team members, the leader of the virtual team have to adopt a blend of the three leadership styles – transactional, transformational and situational.

Research studies indicate that the leadership style has greater effects on the productivity of virtual project teams as compared to that on the traditional collocated teams. This finding makes it essential for all the virtual team leaders or managers to revisit their leadership approach for an effective virtual team.

A global virtual team leader should have high levels of techno-socio-emotional capabilities and should be able to strike a perfect balance between the following three leadership styles and create a distinctive approach to manage multi-cultural, multi-lingo, multi-geographies and multi-time zone member team.