COVID-19 and leading virtual teams

Today's, most international organisations have distributed and virtual teams; and they are doing their projects in different locations with worldwide teams. For instance, I contributed to a mega construction project. In this project, the design services of the machine had been done in the United of Kingdom; the design review and testing had been done in South Africa, the control system and software development had been prepared in India, and the manufacturing process had been completed in China. Therefore, new challenges were born; as a result of new global environments. Unquestionably, COVID-19 impacts will accelerate working remotely. 

The virtual teams have common characteristics such as culturally varied, geographically distributed, and communicating electronically (Daim et al., 2012). Accordingly, I can say that the virtual teams are principally teams which are dispersed across countrywide borders and they are used IT tools and systems such as emails, WhatsApp messaging, and Web conferencing. Moreover, Daim et al. (2012) suggested that the most critical challenges faced virtual teams; are communication problems. They find five factors to be considered to efficiently communicated throughout the virtual teams; these include trust, social relationships, cultural variances, leadership, and technology. Nevertheless, Verburg et al. (2013) considered that successful virtual teams would be those are works in a particular environment. They classified it for two major characteristics; firstly; the communication which includes team trust, open channels, clear communication procedures. Secondly, an organisational backing which contains providing the advanced IT media and respectable rewarding system to motivate the teams. I agree with Daim et al. (2012) that the utmost challenging for virtual teams is communication issues; as virtual teams are working from a distance, besides I think their suggestions to resolve the problems; are a more comprehensive than Verburg et al. (2013). Precisely, I observed they are considered the factors of cultural differences and interpersonal relations among the virtual teams.

Furthermore, I think the best practices for the virtual teams include the organisations have adjusted structures to commensurate with the virtual teams and individuals with suitable skills and behaviours. Besides, virtual project managers can rapidly gather the right team and manage them harmoniously by using high technology; they are well familiar with an appropriate leadership style needed and adopted an adequate organisation culture which it will bring the right environment for a good accomplishment. Undoubtedly, virtual project managers will choose the appropriate leadership approaches and will manage the different virtual teams with different techniques of management, as the one size doesn't right for all projects (Shenhar et al., 2002). However, Tyssen, Wald, and Spieth (2013) are recommended the contingency theory to be used to recognise leadership behaviours. On the other hand, Gundersen, Helles?y, and Raeder (2012) find that the transformational leaders have more fulfilled, best adapted for virtual team individuals, and increased performances. Thus, based on their findings; the virtual team will perform better with transformational project managers. Honestly, there are many other researchers were supported and critiqued that the transactional and situational approaches are appropriate leadership behaviour for virtual project managers.

In conclusion, I recommend to those project managers want to be more influential and successful for leading and managing teams in the virtual environment, to start firstly; analysis their virtual teams based on their leadership approach, characterises the critical issues, and finally adjusting accordingly to an appropriate leadership style.

References:

? Daim, T.U., Ha, A., Reutiman, S., Hughes, B., Pathak, U., Bynum, W. and Bhatla, A. (2012) 'Exploring the communication breakdown in global virtual teams'. International Journal of Project Management, 30(2), pp.199-212.

? Gundersen, G., Helles?y, B.T. and Raeder, S. (2012) 'Leading international project teams: The effectiveness of transformational leadership in dynamic work environments'. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 19(1), pp.46-57.

? Shenhar, A.J., Dvir, D., Lechler, T. and Poli, M. (2002) 'One size does not fit all: True for projects, true for frameworks'. In Proceedings of PMI Research Conference. Project Management Institute.

? Tyssen, A.K., Wald, A. and Spieth, P. (2013) 'Leadership in temporary organisations: A review of leadership theories and a research agenda'. Project Management Journal, 44(6), pp.52-67.

? Verburg, R.M., Bosch-Sijtsema, P. and Vartiainen, M. (2013) 'Getting it done: Critical success factors for project managers in virtual work settings'. International journal of project management, 31(1), pp.68-79.