The global economy driven by knowledge workers is increasingly reliant on virtual teams collaborating within and across organizations to gain or sustain competitive advantage. Best practices of virtual collaboration are continuously being defined and adapted as new technologies are developed enabling increasing efficiency. Yet, our understanding of virtual team dynamics is in its infancy. Differences in communication and culture- styles and norms greatly impact the efficacy of virtual collaboration. No longer in a conference room group dynamics change as individual participation varies.

Leaders face new challenges in guiding and facilitating virtual teams requiring new skills and techniques. George Bradt of Prime Genesis eloquently sums up the their charge: “Leadership is about inspiring and enabling others to do their absolute best, together, to realize a meaningful and rewarding shared purpose” in his book: The New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan (Wiley, 2006, 2009). Virtual teams form differently, influence differently and may require different work flows than on site teams while they are still held similarly accountable. How can we as leaders of these teams best enable our virtual collaborators and position them to realize this meaningful and rewarding shared purpose?

I recently moderated an engaging HCI webcast Leading Virtual Teams in which Dr. Gary Woodill of Brandon Hall Research joined by A.G. Lambert of Saba, identified Twenty Tips for managing and facilitating virtual teams based on his own research and personal experience as a member of such a team. A member of a virtual team myself, I readily identified with each of the tips and the challenges they represented. While technology has enabled us to work in this virtual environment, creating many of these leadership challenges, technology is also providing new tools to help us overcome them. One such example, earlier identified, is that of a shift in or lack of participation on conference calls. I have found it easy to jump on a conference call and hit the “mute” button to prevent the awkward pauses or interruptions in conversation that arise without the benefit of seeing those I am speaking with, only to find that I or someone else has forgotten to un-mute when trying to respond or interject. Dr. Woodill has found that participation greatly increases when the communication is conducted in a text or messaging platform such as Skype. A great start to what I am sure will be a continuing topic and discussion as new technologies are leveraged, more research is done and next practices developed from telecommuting to avatars.