Virtual leadership – leading in the new normal

3 out of 4 virtual teams are doomed to fail.

Even if this devastating forecast comes from a somewhat older study and remote work has long been a fixed part of the working world, the statement nevertheless has a kernel of truth. Virtual teams face greater challenges than on-site teams that can exchange ideas in the office and the kitchenette.

Two decisive factors are responsible for this. On the one hand, the fact that remote work requires different processes, coordination and communication.

On the other, virtual teams often lack proper leadership. Although (thanks also to the corona pandemic) working from flexible locations is now part of everyday life for many German companies, virtual leadership is often still a foreign word.

Time for us to change that.

What is virtual leadership?

Virtual leadership is the management of location-independent teams. By that we mean those employees who work remotely, that is from flexible locations, or from the home office. Similar to working on site, virtual leadership is about inspiring, motivating and leading your own employees.

The challenge in virtual leadership is ensuring flawless leadership of location-independent teams

A virtual leader therefore has to ensure that their remote team functions as a unit despite geographical, structural, personal and temporal differences. Classic factors of employee management come into play here, but often in a stronger or extended form.

Virtual leadership is, in a sense, the transfer of the leadership role into the world of digital and decentralized working. We're not talking about a passing trend, as is readily the case with various management methods. The concept of virtual leadership is much more complex. It's the result of the paradigm shift that has taken place in the working world.

What significance does virtual leadership have?

Digital transformation has fundamentally changed the work environment in companies. 50, 30 and even 10 years ago, fixed hierarchies, predefined tasks and rigid working hours were lived practice. Today the circumstances are different.

On the one hand, ever more dynamic markets require fast and agile action. On the other, the employees themselves have new needs. Flexibility, a sense of purpose and freedom play a much greater role than in past decades. Instead of the time clock and dusty structures, New Work is now on the agenda.

From this arises an image of the employee of the future, in which especially the following aspects of digital working matter:

• Individuality and independence;
• Time independence;
• Decentralized working and location independence;
• Constant access to information;
• Active collaboration through collaboration tools;
• Use of adaptive networks;
• Work-life balance.

Times change, the market changes, people and their needs change… do you already sense the next step?

Exactly, companies too have to change if they want to position themselves in the market in the long run and keep their employees satisfied. They have to create conditions that do justice to the current developments. This necessity became especially clear during the corona pandemic, in which many businesses worldwide had no choice but to rely solely on digital collaboration.

Many companies had to close their offices during the corona pandemic and switch their teams to digital collaboration. Especially in times of such change, the necessity of virtual leadership becomes apparent.

Virtual leadership is a prime example of how companies can adjust to the radical change in the working world. It isn't about completely reinventing employee management per se. Instead, the concept is much more a necessary extension of the previous understanding. In other words: virtual leadership is, in effect, the new, digital counterpart to the classic leadership role.

So far, so good. But why is this further development necessary at all?

Is leading employees at a distance really different?

To make the difference between traditional employee management and virtual leadership clear, it helps at this point to look at the task field of a classic leader.

A team lead should…

• …lead their employees and ensure that set goals are reached;
• …have the overview of projects and their course;
• …take into account the interests of the company as well as its employees;
• …control results and performance and motivate where necessary;
• …be able to deal with people and communicate;
• …in the best case, lead by good example, inspire and foster the personal growth of employees.

That alone is already a high level of responsibility and performance that a leader takes on. And in this scenario we assume central working. That is, the team lead and their employees are at best all in the same place and can exchange ideas in person.

And with that we're already at the decisive point that makes virtual leadership necessary: remote teams function differently than on-site teams.

Location-independent working means that employees and leaders work together at a distance. Communication here is mostly asynchronous, processes are decentralized and almost everything happens digitally.

For the team lead, that conversely means that, on top of the classic leadership tasks, further requirements are added:

• Ensuring that all employees have the technical equipment, the collaboration tools and the know-how to get their work done;
• Developing suitable workflows that enable everyone's virtual collaboration and deliver the desired results;
• Creating and implementing a system in which the responsibilities of everyone involved are transparent and accepted by all;
• Building trust, team spirit and motivation without direct personal contact.

For this not only to succeed but also to bring success, leading virtual teams takes different strategies than classic on-site teams.

Challenges for remote teams and how virtual leadership counteracts them

Virtual working has many advantages for companies and employees alike. It fulfills the wish for more flexibility and independence, which, according to various studies, also contributes to higher staff satisfaction. By covering different time zones, costs can also be saved and productivity increased.

But although decentralized working offers potential for improvement on many levels, it also brings new challenges:

Fear of ambiguities or even loss of control

In line with „out of sight, out of mind”, many employers fear that their employees work less efficiently in remote work. Distractions can't be detected directly through eye contact. Misunderstandings or ambiguities about processes and priorities aren't always noticed immediately.

Missing interpersonal closeness

In virtual work, employees' self-organization is a basic prerequisite. At the same time, opportunities for personal interaction, like those possible with on-site teams, fall away. That brings two dangers at once. On the one hand, team members can feel isolated and not well integrated. And on the other, it's harder for team leads to recognize the feelings and moods of their own employees.

More difficult conflict resolution

With remote teams, nonverbal communication is usually strongly limited. At least, if you disregard video calls and meetings. That makes it harder for leaders to notice emerging conflicts early. On top of that, resolving them via digital media requires a different approach than would be the case in a direct personal conversation.

Lack of motivation

A virtual team too needs a vision, a mission and motivation. And these, in turn, can't be achieved without sharing shared values like trust and belonging. The crux here also lies in the nature of decentralized working. How do you build relationships and team spirit when you don't see each other and mostly communicate digitally?

What can virtual leadership achieve?

Just as there's no single solution in classic management, there's no single form in virtual leadership either. Depending on the company, team situation and the leader's competencies, the practical implementation can include different methods and instruments.

But that's not so important at this point. Because virtual leadership is less about the actual leadership style itself than about adapting one's actions to the new conditions of digital working.

Above all, one foundation should be in focus here: trust. On both sides.

A leader of a remote team earns their employees' trust by applying concepts that lead to more willingness to perform, responsibility, discipline and loyalty in the team. These include, for example, transformational as well as participative and goal-oriented leadership.

Vice versa, the virtual leader may also build trust toward the team, which is achieved, among other things, through regular information, shared team values and informal communication.

In addition, the challenges just mentioned can be counteracted through various measures. Missing closeness can be compensated, for example, with the help of digital tools and creative ideas. From meetings like online after-work to entertaining games, there are hardly any limits to the possibilities. Likewise, the leader can prevent the emergence of conflicts through the targeted use of coaching elements and foster the personal development of individual employees.

Digital after-work events foster trust and belonging to the team.

How do you get started with virtual leadership?

Basically, virtual leadership means bringing the strengths of your own team members together in a controlled way and acting, through the highs and lows of collaboration, as facilitator, contact and decision-maker.

The great thing about it is that leaders mostly don't have to start from zero. Often everyone involved has already gathered experience in on-site positions and knows many of the required behaviors and ways of working. Now it's about transferring this knowledge into the digital context and optimizing it according to individual needs.

Step 1: Define an action plan

For a virtual team to be successful, it needs defined goals, structures, responsibilities and processes. Delivering this mammoth task is many times easier if you work out a concrete action plan.

Step 2: Involve the team

There are many possible ways to create the action plan. This can be done first by the leader alone, in a small group or directly with the complete team. What's important in any case is that the employees are involved in the process as early as possible.

Step 3: Assign a virtual buddy

Whether new or existing employees, every team member is assigned a virtual buddy, a kind of digital partner. These two should exchange daily and are available to each other as a person of trust and contact. Over time, these interactions then happen automatically.

Step 4: Set rules

Establish rules or norms for collaborating in the team. These should include the mutual wishes and expectations of the employees and the leader. That creates security for everyone involved and at the same time opens doors for dialogue, for example in feedback conversations.

Step 5: Regular retrospectives

Everything is in flux. Conditions change, new projects begin, team constellations shift, people develop further. Accordingly, a regular retrospective should be a fixed part of virtual leadership, in order to make better decisions for the future with these insights.

Would you like to know more about how virtual leadership works and how you can transform your on-site teams into successful virtual teams? Then feel free to contact us.