Leaders in Physical and Virtual Environment

By Rifath Maria

Technological innovations have brought forth tremendous amount of changes in our world which is not only limited to our daily lives but also extends to how leadership in organization is performed. The emerging communication mediums created a glocalization movement amongst organization. Organizations now urge their employees to conduct business according to both local and global consideration. However, compared to leadership in the physical world, virtual leadership can be even more challenging. Some of these challenges include: succeeding in global work environment, cultural dispersions and “recognizability” of a leader’s status.

Glocalization involves the concept of thinking “globally” but acting “locally”. This concept becomes even more important for virtual leaders who lead teams full of people from various cultural backgrounds and locations. Just like leaders in physical environment, virtual leaders also need to be visionaries in order to be able to create set of goals for their teams or organization and successful leaders need a team full of capable people to fulfill these goal sets. Working in a physical environment, creates constraints for leaders and limit who they can hire. Virtual workforce reduces this constraint and enables leaders to “attract best employees while tapping into global knowledge” (Rendón 2014). It helps an organization to be more diversified; however, it also becomes vital to understand the leadership skills one needs to possess in order to manage these virtual teams.

Media Richness

Additionally, technological innovations have allowed us to have more choices of communication mediums which lead us to “media richness”. Media richness theory refers to communication mediums’ abilities to reproduce information. Since virtual leaders do not interact with their team face-to-face, they must be strategic when selecting a communication medium. Proper choice of communication medium enhances “recognizability” of a leader’s status. In a

physical environment interaction, “leadership indicators involve body language, vocal inflection, eye contact, clothing, etc., which in a computer-mediated-communication can be difficult to detect” (Ruggieri, Boca and Garro 2013). Choosing the appropriate communication medium helps leaders adopt other indicators—such as frequency of intervention, always being available, setting proper timing for request and responses—to establish the “recognizability” status.

Difference in Skill Sets: Physical vs Virtual Leadership

Leadership qualities can be same in both physical and virtual environment; however, the difference lies in how leadership is executed. Among some of the leadership qualities, “being authentic, connecting with others, promoting inclusiveness, networking and all of the interpersonal skills that build relationships and trust are always important” (Dennis, Meola and Hall 2013). In a virtual environment, the actions associated with these skills must be deliberate and intentional. Thus, leaders need a defined strategy for using such skills along with actions for executions, as well as a way to measure the results. In a physical environment where a leader is always interacting with his or her team face-to-face, does not feel the necessary challenges to execute their leadership qualities. However, for a virtual leader, it is different. In order to create group cohesion, trust and assurance to promote team efficiency, they have to work harder to reach out to their team since there are no physical or face-to-face interactions.

Trust and Transparency

In order to gain the trust of the virtual team members, the leaders need to get to know their team and also encourage “observable candor” to promote transparency within the team as well as providing feedbacks on a team member’s work performance. According to Keith Ferrazzi who is the CEO of Ferrazzi Greenlight (2014), “50 financial firms confirmed that leaders of dispersed groups, in particular, must push members to be frank with one another. One way to do this is by modeling ‘caring criticism’” (para. 4). It is important to deliver positive feedback to motivate individuals and recognize someone’s hard work. However, at the same time it is also crucial to deliver negative feedback in a “caring manner” to improve their work performances. Instead of bluntly stating the negative feedback, one can use words such as “I might suggest” or “think about this” when delivering negative feedback and concisely state their reasoning or suggestions (Ferrazzi 2014).

Silicon Valley and Virtual Meetings

In hopes to create more diversity in Silicon Valley companies, technological companies often hold virtual online meetings. In 2015, HP was the largest company to hold a shareholder meeting online. According to McGregor (2015), “In 2011, just 21 companies used Broadridge Financial Solutions, a primary provider of online shareholder meeting technology, to hold virtual-only meetings. By 2014, that number had grown to 53” (para. 3). In shareholder meetings, online meetings save money especially when annual meeting attendance is often sparse. It also gives the opportunity to create more voice for leaders from different regions who can present their ideas to the other leaders who live in different countries or time zones. Additionally, extending an organization’s global reach can also create more complexity within that organization.

As a result, the more globalized an organization becomes, the more responsibility a leader has to face to maintain their legacy (Miller and Engemann 1997). Even though Virtual meetings may lower the cost for some organizations, but they can be inefficient if the messages are poorly executed. Thus, it is the leaders’ responsibility to be even more diligent in order to make sure everyone’s voice is being heard in order to lead their team to success. In virtual meetings, it is often hard to get a point across due the lack of physical presence, but proper organizational skills can ensure that all the team members are on the same page.

Conclusion

Leaders in a physical environment and virtual environment may share the same skills, but latter requires more diligence and awareness which is why a virtual leader has to articulate those skills a little differently to maintain their leadership status quo in a non-physical environment. Without these qualities, a team can effort can result in a failure. Despite the challenges of not being able to interact with their team physically, a virtual leader still needs to be able to reach out to the team to promote efficiency and group cohesion which is a vital point to ensure a dispersed team’s success.

References

Dennis, D., Deborah, M., and Hall, M. (2013). Effective Leadership in a Virtual Workforce. Retrieved April 19, 2017, from https://www.td.org/Publications/Magazines/TD/TD-Archive/2013/02/Effective-Leadership-in-a-Virtual-Workforce

Ferrazzi, K. (2014, December 1). Getting Virtual Teams Right. Retrieved April 19, 2017, from https://hbr.org/2014/12/getting-virtual-teams-right

McGregor, J. (2015). More Companies are Going Virtual for Their Annual Shareholder Meetings. Retrieved April 19, 2017, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2015/03/17/more-companies-are-going-virtual-for-their-annual-shareholder-meetings/

Miller, Holmes E. and Engemann, Kurt J. (1997). The Role of Information Technology in Managing Virtual Organizations. Paper presented at the Fourth International Conference on Social Values, University of Oxford, England.

Rendón, F. (2014, April 28). Understanding the Proliferation of Virtual Teams in the Global Economy. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frankie-rendon/understanding-the-prolife_b_5212366.html

Ruggieri, S., Boca, S. and Garro, M. (2013). Leadership Styles in Synchronous and Asynchronous Virtual Learning Environments. The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology, 12(4), 96-102. Retrieved from http://www.tojet.net/articles/v12i4/12412.pdf

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