Assignment 5: How To Lead A Virtual Team
Instructions:
Read assignment submission instructions on pages 4 to 5 of the course syllabus. Your essays will be graded on content to include grammar and spelling. While there is no end to what you might write you must convey your thoughts in essay of at least four to five pages excluding cover page and references section.
Assignment:
Read the “Raygen Company Slum”case study and write an essay that describes how you would handle the situation.
You essay should incorporate the leadership skills learned this week as well as challenges that many leaders face.
Submission Instructions:
Your completed essay must be submitted as an MS word attachment to this assignment no later than Sunday.
Assignments completed in a narrative essay or composition format must follow the citation style cited in the _ American Psychological Association (APA).Students are encouraged to read/understand the basics.
Assignment 5: How To Lead A Virtual Team
Virtual teams experience a wide range of challenges from both internal and external sources thus adversely affecting their productivity and thus this should be countered to ensure the teams are in a position to meet their goals and objectives. Raygen Company slum is an organization run virtually with the employees widely dispersed across the globe. Raygen as a company has existed for three years and has ten employees that are widely spread across the globe. The fact that the organization has existed for three years and has ten employees that are widely dispersed across the globe results in challenges and barriers that affect the organizations’ success. The challenges and issues experienced include that the increased lack of engagement among the team, the marketing department is not in a position to meet trends and changes in the society, team members lose sight of the big picture, and constant. In this regard, there is a need for leadership to ensure the virtual teams are in a position to overcome challenges and barriers through effective leadership skills.
The leading and management of a virtual team by the new leader will be a great determinant in the organizational success as well as the wellbeing of the teams involved. First, the new leaders need to involve the teams in the process and tasks involved in achieving the organizational objectives as opposed to directing them on the roles and goals (Lockwood, 2015). The guidance on the process and tasks ensures that the teams members are actively involved in the organization’s plans and thus they can effectively execute their different duties and responsibilities in line with achieving the desired goals and objectives. The leader needs to employ emotional intelligence and robust organizational skills to ensure that they are in a position to bring all parties together towards the achievement of the organizational goals.
The leader of a virtual team needs to commit to a communication charter that ensures that communications and other vital information are effectively shared with all the relevant parties and members of the team. The virtual teams are rarely engaged in face to face communication and this negatively affects the exchange of messages (Kirkman et al., 2004). Therefore, to avoid the pitfalls associated with ineffective communication is to instill discipline and norms of behavior to be used in the course of the communications between virtual teams. In this case, the teams need to be clear and disciplined, limitation of background noises and side conversations, speaking at a reasonable pace and being attentive in listening. The leader needs to be good examples by having clear and excellent communication for the team members to follow suit. Therefore, effective communication skills and channels enhance the elimination of barriers and challenges in virtual team management.
The leaders leading virtual teams need to ensure that virtual teams are not subjected to information and documentation overload to ensure that they are only exposed to vital, practical and crucial information for their different operations (Piccoli, Powell and Lves, 2004). Subjecting virtual teams’ excess information and documentation makes them lose morale as well as creating boredom in the work process and procedures of implementing different functions. In this regard, the virtual teams need to be subjected to simple and vital information that will ensure them to effectively carry their operation. The information, communication, and documentation need to be aligned towards meeting the goals of the organization and eliminating barriers and challenges. Therefore, the leader needs to have the creativity and innovative skills to ensure that team players in the virtual team have access and are subjected to simple but relevant information and communication for their effective operation.
Raygen Company slum virtual team players suffer decreased morale and thus they need to be motivated by their leader. Virtual team players are faced with challenges, barriers, and distractions that adversely affect their motivation to the point of losing morale (Blackburn, Furst and Rosen, 2003). The virtual teams feel isolated as they work independently to the point of making them disregard the value of their effort in the team. In this regard, the team leader needs to adopt strategies, practices, and policies that enable the team players to be motivated. First, the instant communication through tools like Microsoft Lync, google talk, google hangouts and Cisco Jabber needs to be enhanced in the interest of regular interactions, ensure that employees can access relevant tools and resources for their work, ensure that the team leader is available at all times to handle issues and to regularly visit the individual virtual team players in their different locations. The team leader needs to employee commitment and passion qualities in the course of their operations to ensure that they can effect sustainable motivation among the teams for increased productivity.
Conclusion
Raygen Company slum virtual teams face challenges and barriers to their operations thus affecting their productivity and this can be addressed through the efforts of the team leader. In this case, the team leader needs to employ the best practices coupled with effective skills to ensure that the virtual teams are effectively aligned to organizational goals objectives. The practices that need to be adopted include involve the teams in organizational processes and operations, develop an effective communication charter, ensuring the virtual team is subjected to relevant information and documentation and the teams are regularly motivated.
References
Blackburn, R., Furst, S., & Rosen, B. (2003). Building a winning virtual team. Virtual teams that work: Creating conditions for virtual team effectiveness, 95-120.
Kirkman, B. L., Rosen, B., Tesluk, P. E., & Gibson, C. B. (2004). The impact of team empowerment on virtual team performance: The moderating role of face-to-face interaction. Academy of Management Journal, 47(2), 175-192.
Lockwood, J. (2015). Virtual team management: what is causing communication breakdown?. Language and intercultural communication, 15(1), 125-140.
Piccoli, G., Powell, A., & Ives, B. (2004). Virtual teams: team control structure, work processes, and team effectiveness. Information Technology & People, 17(4), 359-379.
