Competencies and Challenges of Virtual Team Leadership: Managing Change, Communication, and Productivity

Explore the competencies and challenges of virtual team leadership, including managing change and communication, trust-building, and maintaining productivity.

Running head: VIRTUAL TEAM LEADERSHIP
Virtual Team Leadership
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s note

1VIRTUAL TEAM LEADERSHIP
Question 1) Competency in Virtual Team Leadership
In recent years, different organizations have shifted to a virtual workplace or have
implemented a hybrid approach. With this approach, the employees would work remotely within
the organization. One of the competencies that would be required within the leadership aspects
of a Virtual Team is the management of changes within any concerned organization.
With the progress of the business within the organization, there would be a need for
making changes that would suit the needs of the business. The primary ability for implementing
new initiatives is extremely critical for advancing the objectives of the organization and also
maintaining a competitive advantage in the recent competitive market (Cameron & Green, 2015).
The management of change is a difficult aspect for a leader. This aspect could become more
challenging with respect to a virtual environment. The virtual leaders would have the capability
to sell new kind of ideas to the internal team. These leaders would also be responsible for selling
new ideas to the internal team and also help them in overcoming of doubts regarding any kind of
changes.
The virtual team leaders would also help the teams in overcoming of doubts regarding
any kind of changes. The leaders would plan the entire process for implementing the needed
changes and thus they would communicate the internal plan to the team members (Hoch &
Kozlowski, 2014). This would also ensure that the team would remain motivated about
maintaining the required changes within the organization. The proper implementation and
management of changes by the virtual team leaders would help in improving the internal
processes of the organization.

2VIRTUAL TEAM LEADERSHIP
Question 2) Competency for leading virtual teams
Virtual teamwork has shown massive growth in the present business organizations and
these techniques help in the increase of productivity for the organization. While virtual teams
help in the proper functioning of tasks, there are some competencies that could be difficult to be
maintained by the teams.
The primary challenge faced by virtual teams is based on communication. While the
working of the virtual teams would be based within a remote environment, there might be a
certain lack in the communication flow within the teams. Another factor is based on trust within
the people working in a virtual environment (Lee, 2016). Maintaining a proper level of trust in an
environment where face-to-face interaction is rare could be found to be difficult.
The final challenge that could be faced by the virtual team leaders is the issue based on
low productivity within the workplace. In a virtual environment, the team leaders would not be
able to look over the working progress that would otherwise be possible in a real-time
environment (Kasemsap, 2016). This would lead to team members for not making use of their
time in a wise manner. It would also be unrealistic to expect each team members to work
together at the same pace and thus gauge the progress of work. Thus, this would lead to an effect
on the productivity issue.

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References
Cameron, E., & Green, M. (2015). Making sense of change management: A complete guide to
the models, tools and techniques of organizational change. Kogan Page Publishers.
Hoch, J. E., & Kozlowski, S. W. (2014). Leading virtual teams: Hierarchical leadership,
structural supports, and shared team leadership. Journal of applied psychology, 99(3),
390.
Kasemsap, K. (2016). Examining the roles of virtual team and information technology in global
business. In Strategic management and leadership for systems development in virtual
spaces (pp. 1-21). IGI Global.
Lee, M. R. (2016). Leading virtual project teams: Adapting leadership theories and
communications techniques to 21st century organizations. Auerbach Publications.