Preface

Make no mistake, leading a virtual team is tough. It is a proverbial minefield of technology, feelings, culture, psychology, and human interaction. Anyone can manage a virtual team, but to do it well, that’s another question entirely! While DQ, or digital intelligence, is an important skill to have, it’s certainly not everything. To truly lead and inspire a virtual team, and not just manage a bunch of remote people trying to hit their key performance indicators requires definitive skill, leadership, and personal development. Leadership of a local team certainly has its challenges, but when you throw in virtual communications, geographic separation, and major time differences, managing a team of remotely located human beings can become a frenzied concerto of mixed feelings, confusion, and misinterpretations. People who work remotely in isolation can feel alone, virtual managers can have work/life balance issues and familial pressures due to long hours, and simple verbal or written misunderstandings can have disastrous consequences for the team and possibly even the company. Not only is electronic or e-leadership a challenge, but decision making can be slow, and confusion of job roles can slow the process down. With all of these difficulties, it’s no wonder that some say 60 percent of virtual teams fail (Witt 2011).

Taking it even further, in a survey of over 1,000 global, virtual managers in 80 different countries, a whopping 98 percent felt content in their intercultural leadership abilities. However, only 19 percent of virtual team members felt that their team leadership was actually up to the task of leading an intercultural team (Virtual Teams Survey Report 2016)! Is it possible that managers of virtual teams think too highly of their abilities? Are these leaders suffering delusions of grandeur? Or could it simply be that leading a virtual team involves far greater complexity than meets the eye?

The purpose of this book is to simplify the lives of those who are in the position of leading remote, virtual teams. The authors know that remote team leaders don’t have a lot of time on their plate. Therefore, we took the time to do the research so busy managers don’t have to. To further enhance engagement of the reader with the important topics presented, the book presents a fictional case study of a virtual leader who is trying to adjust to his new role. Through the eyes of this character, we present real, practical, and academic research from multiple sources, including our own study, to streamline the experience and make it visceral and relevant to those who face these challenges on a daily basis. Through the use of this fictional case study, backed up by real research, we provide a practical and useful handbook that can help leaders avoid the inevitable pitfalls that can come with managing people through the technology of computer screens and cell phones.