Leading Virtual Teams:
Increasing Virtual Work Effectiveness

This program is designed to provide leaders and others who work virtually with tools and techniques to increase effectiveness as virtual leaders and team members. The course is ideal for members of the same organization, however attending individually is an effective way to increase awareness of the unique needs of virtual workers and leaders as well as build leadership skills.

Research shows that virtual teams can outperform collocated teams if they utilize new skills and processes to accomplish results. The Gestalt International Study Center’s approach to leading virtual teams provides the unique skills and perspective that leaders need to make the transition to successfully working virtually.

In this program we aim to address the challenges many team members report such as feelings of isolation, alienation, and detachment associated with virtual teamwork:

“I find that by working at home, my work is my home and I miss interaction. I don’t have as many people to network with on issues or successes. Sometimes I can’t reach anyone by phone and it’s frustrating. When you work in an office, you just look over their cube and there they are.” And, “as much as we want to go and run the world from our bedrooms, in our slippers, we are humans, we have to be touched, seen, and heard.”

Benefits

Participants will:

• Learn how to make an assessment of strengths and needs of their virtual team.
  
  
• Learn how to match technology to the needs of the team’s task
  
  
• Receive personalized, ongoing feedback from participants, peers, and faculty
  
  
• Gain experience with applying intimate and strategic behaviors in a virtual context
  
  
• Learn how to coach and manage performance from a distance
  
  
• Develop their own “tool kit” for leading teams virtually
  
  
• Build a network of continuing support
  
  
• Understand how to build trust from a distance
  
  
• Insure that team members feel included when working from a distance
  

Participants

This program is designed for leaders with teams who work from a distance or for those moving into virtual work.