Virtual Servant Leadership

          Servant-Leadership in virtual teams can be tough since little to no face-to-face interaction occurs. However in leading virtual teams an immense amount of trust must be created between the team members and the leader. “Virtual team leaders have to trust people to do their jobs without constant supervision, and they learn to focus more on the results than on the process of accomplishing them” (Daft, R.L.). This is where servant leadership is a critical part of leading online teams.

          With little face-to-face interaction leaders need to build personal connections with their followers. “No matter how effective team members are as individuals, unless they can come together as a team, virtual teams will fail” (Daft, R.L.). One way to build this connection is through servant leadership. One of the tools that servant leaders can use to build trust with virtual teams is thought leadership. “Thought leadership centers on earning trust and credibility. Thought leaders get noticed by offering something different – information, insights and ideas, for instance. Thought leadership positions oneself as a team authority and resource and trusted advisor by establishing your reputation as a generous contributor to your team” (Heuvel, D.V.).Thought leadership combined with humility is virtual servant leadership. Putting out your ideas, contributing constantly, providing innovative outlets, and building trust through the collaboration of ideas is quintessential in building trust in virtual teams. Leveraging virtual servant leadership needs to be demonstrated through multiple communication avenues to gain optimum productivity and follower buy-in.

           Virtual servant leaders need to leverage multiple communication avenues to maximize their influence on their team. Social media is offering new ways for servant leaders to interact with their teams. Video, pictures, audio, and two way conversations are giving servant leaders new ways to virtual interact with their teams. Leveraging these avenues with proper communication styles to meet the needs of the individual members of their team will create optimum productivity and follower buy-in.

            This will be an continuing quest to research and pull leadership theories from a variety of different sources that can be applied to build a case for virtual servant leadership. My goal is to create an archive of different tools and theories that leaders can use to help them implement leadership tactics within social computing.

References

Daft, R. L. (2008). The Leadership Experience (4th ed.). Cincinnati, OH: South-Western. ISB 13: 9780324539684
Heuvel, D. V. (2008) Thought Leadership Marketing Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/vandda/thought-leadership-marketing, August 16, 2008