Successfully leading virtual teams.
Chapter 1:
Introduction
Leadership is one of the most important aspects of the organization because it ensures that the team achieves its goals and objectives. Similarly, teamwork is another very important element in the business environment. Usually, people work as a team and continue that way until one time they are called upon to lead the team. The foundation for a successful leader as well as a successful member of the organization is communication skills. It is usually important for someone to take their time to listen and understand the tasks as well as other group members. One should also possess a high level of confidence and try to instill trust in other group members. There is a higher possibility of promoting the organization as a whole and ensuring its success when excellent skills in leadership and teamwork are shown by the members. While looking at leadership and collaboration, we consider modernization and globalization, which has brought a lot of changes to the constitution, operation, and structures of various organizations. To be specific, in the United States, this modernization has resulted in the creation of virtual teams where personnel or workers from different locations in the same organization work together to accomplish their goals or complete their projects.
In the past, most organizations in the US operated in a single location where all their employees and workers were located in an only place. However, the evergrowing telecommunication technologies and streamlined IT development have resulted in numerous organizations turning to build virtual teams and remote groups. Virtual teams have been used by these organizations to run outsourcing projects. Internet technologies have made it possible for the organization to hire remote team members, manage projects from different locations at any time, and make contact with outsourced personnel in real-time. Different approaches can be used in virtual team communication in order to track work schedules and tasks of the remote colleagues. Virtual team management’s importance is always felt when the organization needs to control the time and effort of remote workers (Aiken, et al., 2013).
Background of the Problem
Virtual teams have brought some challenges to the members and leaders of the team. The team is often virtual, but the people in these teams are usually real individuals. This implies that they have real knowledge and skill needs, ambitions and interests, fears and hopes, and, more importantly, communication needs. According to BOOSTER Space Industries’ director, Balvinder Singh Powar, the value brought by an individual worker to the organization is more important than his or her location. Powar also insists that globalization and technology have made it possible for easy access of the best talent anywhere worldwide, however, this has brought the need and ability to lead virtual teams (Anderson et al., 2015).
To ensure the success of virtual teams, the following practices can be done. First, the leader should start by building trust. If you are interacting through the phone, it is difficult to know if the respondent is speaking the truth. It is, therefore, essential to create trust in the absence of physical presence. Secondly, the leader should provide level-appropriate clarity, that is, providing the directive steps of what to do for them to be clear of what to do. Lastly, envision how the different parts will fit together. Therefore, the members of the team should see how what they are doing fits with the overall vision of the organization (Aiken, et al., 2013).
However, there are various limitations to the successful leading of a virtual team, including: organization, transparency, limitations in communication, and different time zones. All these hurdles affect the success of a virtual team in different ways. Virtual collaboration makes it difficult for leaders to carry out an evaluation of their team me,bers, and find out if there is transparency among them. Also, there is no face-to-face communication. Therefore, the leader my not gauge if a member is telling the truth or being honest. Organizing work operations might also seem difficult in virtual collaboration because there might be miscommunication. The leader, therefore, needs to clarify his or her information by providing detailed instructions for everyone to understand them (Bonebright, 2010).
Problem Statement
The problem is that there are limitations in communication between the members of the team. For instance, the issue of communication in virtual collaboration has made it difficult for the virtual team to have a face-to-face conversation. This implies that there might be miscommunication where the recipient may not receive the intended information from the sender, therefore leading to some misunderstanding in the end. Additionally, the problem of communication in virtual collaboration may result in a situation where the information may land in unauthorized hands. This is very dangerous because the information might be used by the wrong individuals against the organization, thus putting the business at risk. Because of the issue of communication, the leader should take the necessary steps to ensure that clear information is passed to the right recipient. This is very important in ensuring that the right information is passed to the right person at the same time, thus ensuring effective communication and consequently, the success of the organization. Apart from communication issues, there are other problems, such as organization, transparency, and different time zones(Anderson et al., 2015).
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of the study is to find out the necessary practices or steps to take to ensure there is successful leadership in virtual teams in the United States organizations, specifically in Minnesota. Similarly, the study aims to define leadership theory components and how it can be used to educate health care leaders to build and manage effective virtual teams within a healthcare organization. The study has been designed to define how leaders can use leadership components to make virtual teams more effective. This study examines the views on leadership that those who are leaders in healthcare have when it comes to leading virtual teams. This study uses a phenomenological case study of twenty members of leadership on an executive healthcare team. In virtual teams, members of the team are usually located in different regions all over the world. This makes it very difficult to have face-to-face communication and close contact with the team members. For this matter, the leader should create trust among its team members, ensure clarity of information, and envision how the different parts would fit together to ensure success in the organization (Carter et al., 2015).
Population and Sample
The leadership professionals were selected from those who work in business office management or office management positions in healthcare organizations in the state of Minnesota, and these were leaders who manage virtual teams. The organizations selected are well-established healthcare organizations in mental health or primary care. The study participants were identified and recruited through these two organizations. The group of leaders from these organizations is appropriate for this study because they lead and manage their teams in a virtual setting.
Study participants consisted of leadership professionals from the business office and office management departments of the healthcare organizations. The sample consists of at least 20 participants, and ten participants will be from each organization, and for data saturation, 20 participants should be sufficient (Davidekova, & Hvorecký, 2017); participant recruitment and data analysis will continue until the saturation level is reached. Surveys, questionnaires, and interviews will be used to obtain the data. A researcher may use their perspective by means of a systematic sampling to limit the range of participants to those who can provide information most important to the topic.
Significance of the study
More organizations in Minnesota, US are beginning to use virtual teams more frequently in the workplace. There are challenges that come with this fast-growing trend of utilizing virtual teams. The challenges include communication, collaboration, and leaders who lack knowledge on how to manage virtual teams. Since face-to-face communication is absent, virtual communication does have a tendency of being demanding, difficult, and challenging. The study will look at a company that had a traditional work environment who recently switched to remote and how leadership has changed because of this change in work environments. The study is significant in enabling us to understand the vital practices required to ensure successful leadership in virtual teams. This will also be vital in real life because the world is changing, and more and more organizations are using virtual teams to achieve the goal of the organization (Chang et al., 2014).
Nature of study
A clearer understanding of the significance of the daily encounters of the participants is the goal of this phenomenological study. Phenomenology also includes the study of the nature of the live interactions of the study participants. The interpretation of a phenomenon, as seen by those who have encountered it, is the essential concept obtained from phenomenology. The focus of phenomenological analysis is on people who have encountered or work in similar conditions (Anderson et al., 2015).
Constitutive, empirical, hermeneutic, interpretive, and descriptive approaches to phenomenology are included. To concentrate on concrete descriptions of experiences of participants, the phenomenological approach chosen to conduct this research was descriptive phenomenology (Chang et al., 2014). Researchers classify a research phenomenon, collect data from people who have witnessed the event, evaluate the data reflection, and classify general trends regarding the aspect. In this research study, the element will be the leadership of virtual teams, and the data being collected for twenty individuals who lead the virtual teams in healthcare organizations.
Research questions/ hypothesis
In order to ensure successful leadership in virtual teams, the leader should take the necessary steps to ensure that the team members work together to achieve a common organizational goal. Similarly, various questions have come up as a result of this topic; these include:
- How can corporate leaders ensure that there is a successful leading of virtual teams?
- How can organizational leaders enhance communication between members of virtual teams?
- How can the leader ensure that the issue of the different time zone is addressed to ensure an equal working environment for every worker?
- How can the leader ensure transparency in the organization?
- How can the leader ensure the proper organization of the workers? (Cordes, 2017).
Theoretical or Conceptual framework
There has been a significant transformation in the business environment due to modernization, from single point workers to remote workers who are located in different geographical areas. There are various challenges faced by leaders who control virtual teams, including organization, transparency, and limitations in communication. However, the best-known problems in leading virtual teams include language and different time zones (Charlier et al., 2016).
There are various tips important for ensuring that virtual teams are led successfully: First, one should be extra bright and write down any objectives or goals. Despite the fact that decisions may be transmitted, it is not clear whether everyone would be able to understand them completely. Therefore, writing them down would be very important in ensuring that everyone has a clear look and understands them clearly. The instructions should be SMART, that is, Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic, and Time-bound. Every meeting conducted should be accompanied by a record keeper to provide the agenda and offer a summary of the previous meeting. This is very important in avoiding confusion and allowing participants, particularly the non-native speakers, to confirm if they understood the discussion in the right manner. Secondly, staff conflicts and concerns must be attended as quickly as possible. Usually, questions or problems from remote staff might be difficult to elicit or express as compared to face-to-face meetings. Therefore, it is very crucial for leaders to take their time and solve staff problems to prevent entrenching conflict. For instance, the leader could organize calls in order to discuss even non-work issues or less vital matters to ease tension among the workers. This is very important because it ensures the workers have a peaceful environment, thus improving their productivity (Charlier et al., 2016).
Additionally, the organization should use the lowest common denominator technology. In an ideal circumstance, there should be at least one face-to-face meeting annually or at the beginning of any major project. The organization should never rule out the use of telephone even in today’s situation where video conferencing is easy to conduct. Furthermore, there should be a fair rotation of spanning time zones of virtual meetings in order to ensure fair distribution of the strain of connecting at untimely hours among the geographical regions. Lastly, the organization should hold celebrations online. Even if it is things such as enjoying team pizza, or even toasting a deal, the organization should always prefer sharing the successes. This is very important for the productivity of the team because it helps build the spirit of the team (Cordes, 2017).
Definition of terms
Leadership – it is defined as the art of motivating a group of individuals to work together as a team and achieve a common goal. Similarly, in a business environment, leadership can be defined as strategically directing colleagues and workers to meet the need of the organization (Charlier et al., 2016).
Teamwork – in general, this can be described as the willingness of a group of individuals to come together and work as one team to achieve a common goal. A good team player has the interests of the team at heart (Cordes, 2017).
Virtual team – this refers to different members of the team who are located in different regions all over the world but working to achieve the common objectives of the business (Davidekova, & Hvorecký, 2017).
Virtual collaboration – this is when geographically separated individuals work interdependently using the modern technology of communication to achieve a common aim. There is no face-to-face communication (Davidekova & Hvorecký, 2017).
Assumptions
Simon and Goes (2018) defined assumptions as true statements beyond the control of a researcher. The study assumed that the participants would be willing to take part in interviews via Zoom or Skype and other activities to collect data. In addition, the study assumed that the responses given by the study participants would be genuine and true. The data collected would provide perspectives and principles for virtual team leadership in its natural context.
Limitations
Limitations are likely incidents and circumstances restricting the study’s scope. The research had some limitations: deficiencies in a study which are beyond the control of the researcher. For instance, some participants did not keep time during the study. This affected the time schedule as results were not computed in time. Poor weather affected the internet, and therefore the connection to some participants was poor—this affected collection of data as there was no clear communication between some participants and the researcher. Lastly, there was a miscommunication between the researcher and participants, and therefore irrelevant answers were given (Davidekova, & Hvorecký, 2017).
Delimitations
In order to eliminate the problem of poor communication during bad weather, the study waited until there was good weather to ensure proper connection, thus clear communication between the researcher and the participants. Also, miscommunication was prevented by issuing written questionnaires so that the participants could clearly read and understand the questions. Lastly, the participants were strictly instructed to keep time for the study (Davidekova, & Hvorecký, 2017).
Chapter Summary
In summary, Chapter 1 majors on connecting leadership and teamwork. Unlike the past, globalization in the modern era has resulted in a virtual team where people from different geographical locations work together to accomplish the organizational goal. It is the responsibility of the leaders to ensure that everyone in these teams works in a conducive environment in order to facilitate their productivity and ensure business success. This can be done through various practices, including issuing extra clear instructions, attending to staff conflict and concerns as quickly as possible, use the lowest standard denominator technology, evident rotation of events, and sharing success online. Chapter 2 will write in-depth details on the literature review on how to ensure successful leadership in a virtual team.
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