You are Not "IMMUNE" to Virtual Teams...

To continue from my last post...

We are all impacted by virtual team principles and responsibilities. For example, maybe you work in the church world. I suspect that you and your team do not share common office hours and common locations... AND I AM including your volunteer team members in that. Many church leaders these days are lay leaders or bi-vocational, so sitting around in in-person meetings are a thing of the past. Or, maybe you lead in the business world and have peers, teammates, or employees that work different shifts, different locations, or in different functions.

Ultimately, you are probably part of a Virtual Team (a team where you do not have consistent focused common in-person times together to make decisions, take action, and/or plan).

So - what does this mean for you? It means:

1. A change in communication style (more frequent, more electronic, more creative, etc...)
2. A change in mission and expectations
3. An increase in automony and trust
4. A drastic change in leadership focus (become a "boundary" leader, supporting your team to succeed in their roles and protecting them from competing priorities)
5. An even stronger reliance on a robust TEAM-focused environment where healthy confrontation is expected and significant buy-in exists for common shared goals

And so much more... STAY TUNED!

Virtual Team Leadership

YES - Virtual Teams. They are becoming more and more a reality in our business and church leadership worlds. Virtual you ask! Virtual meaning having teams that are dispersed across multiple functions, geographies, time zones, shifts, and even locations. Virtual teams are generally right under our noses, we may even lead one ourselves, and we totally miss it.

So what does this mean for you, a leader? Well... it means that you don't lead and motivate and drive these type of teams the same way. And, if you do, it will be detrimental to the performance and productivity of the team!

Following posts will speak to virtual team leadership and best practices. What really works, and what doesn't. And, most importantly, what is most critical about leading virtual teams that if you miss it, you will probably fail.