Leading effective virtual teams

Leading virtual teams often means working with team members:
-          Who have different cultural backgrounds
-          Who are located in different geographies
-          Who report hierarchically to other managers

It also means relying heavily on enabling technologies such as videoconference, Web conference and email for normal team interactions, instead of daily face-to-face contact.

Leading virtual teams is a frequent challenge for today’s managers, who often wonder, “How, exactly, does one lead a successful global team?”
-   How to align the team members’ work across distance and get satisfactory results?
-   How to inspire team spirit and knowledge exchange between people who rarely meet personally?
-   How to establish as satisfying a relationship with the remote team members as with the ones next door?
-   How to avoid the “Out of sight, out of mind” effect?
-   How to motivate all team members equally?

Building trustful relationships with each team member – and between them – is one of the key factors for efficient virtual team performance. 

Working in an international context has given me vast, first-hand experience in virtual teams, both as team member as well as team leader. Based in Germany, I have led teams with individuals located worldwide from Singapore to the US, including most of the European countries.
Meetings via telephone-, Web- and videoconferencing, and project cooperation through email or other collaborative tools, have long been part of my usual way of working I can share many best practices observed in successful virtual teams.

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