Diverse Leadership roles in Effective Virtual Teams

A very interesting paper on the "Importance of Diversified Leadership Roles in Improving Team Effectiveness in a Virtual Collaboration Learning Environment".

By Chen, C. C., Wu, J., Yang, S. C., & Tsou, H.-Y. from the Journal of Educational Technology & Society (2008)

The authors used Quinn’s (1984) Model of Leadership Roles which has eight leadership different roles along two dimensions (Innovator, Broker, Producer, Director, Coordinator, Monitor, Facilitator, Mentor).

"The Abstract

Virtual teams enabled by information and communications technologies (ICT) are increasingly being adopted not only by for-profit organizations but also by education institutions as well. This study investigates what contributes to the success of virtual learning teams. Specifically, we examine the issue of leadership in virtual learning teams.

The study first reviews the current literature on teams, leadership, and trust then proposes a framework of team effectiveness of virtual learning teams. A field study is conducted to investigate the influence of several independent variables including diversified leadership roles, leadership effectiveness, team trust, and propensity to trust.

It is found that diversified leadership roles influences both leadership effectiveness and team trust; both leadership effectiveness and propensity to trust influence team trust, and team trust in turn directly impacts team effectiveness.

In addition, team trust mediates the relationship between leadership effectiveness and team effectiveness. Some practical implications of the results are discussed as well."

Put this another way, in my opinion the paper provides solid evidence that a distributed approach to Leadership is a powerful way to build team effectiveness and results.

Leaders must play different roles to get the best out of their teams, yet we all have particular strengths and weaknesses - and indeed preferences for personal style and behaviour. By distributing Leadership roles and responsibilities across different people, depending on the need, a more effective team result ensues.

See the full paper at www.ifets.info/index.php?http://www.ifets.info/abstract.php?art_id=832