The Chronicler's Web (TCW)

by DAN CALLOWAY
Published 21 November 2009 @ 15:50 UCT

WEAVERVILLE, NC – An analysis of Glen (2003) and Kayworth and Leidner (2001) was conducted to assess the differences in the manner in which they approach the necessary and sufficient leadership behavioral skills needed by an IT team leader in assisting IT professionals in carrying out their work and in creating effective and productive teams.  The approaches are remarkably different between the two because Glen (2003) in his book does not take into account the additional challenges that IT team leaders face when working with virtual teams. 

My assessment of the two approaches follows and specifically addresses the questions: What special leadership challenges are posed by a virtual team?  How well does Glen (2003) prescriptions hold up when the team is virtual? What additional skills are needed in the leader of a virtual IT team?

Both Glen (2003) and Kayworth and Leidner (2001) examine the leadership behavior needed to assist IT professionals in successfully carrying out their work. Kayworth and Leidner (2001), however, investigates a level of complexity not approached by Glen (2003), which relates to virtual teams that are geographically separated from one another.

Glen (2003) indicates that an effective geek leader involved in establishing a productive project team where the end result is both predictable and productive must do so based on five criteria: task coverage, competence, and compatibility; clear and coherent goals; behavioral uniformity; constituent representation; and advocacy system balance. If one or more of the project goals do not meet these criteria, the project is likely to end with a result that is less than the optimal expectation. The task compatibility criterion of task coverage implies that the geek leader must assign tasks to team members that ensure that all the necessary tasks will be completed, the skills required to fill each role are likely to be found in a single person, and the tasks envisioned for a single person is possible to perform simultaneously. The task compatibility criterion of clear and coherent goals implies that each role assigned must have clear and coherent goals that are explicitly articulated by the geek leader. The task compatibility criterion of behavioral uniformity suggests that each role assigned a team member by the team leader must reflect behavioral uniformity in order for it to be completed successfully. The task compatibility criterion of constituent representation suggests that each competing consituency of a technical project must have its interests represented in the project team. And, finally, the task compatibility criterion of advocacy system balance implies that, within technical projects, the team leader must ensure that the balance of power be channeled into productive conflict resulting in decisions for the project among the project roles assigned such that the roles are balanced and the project decisions best reflect the needs of all the various constituencies. These task criteria and how well a geek leader meets them in developing an effective and productive team represents the leadership challenges that an effective team leader must face when assigning roles within a project and managing task ambiguity. The leadership challenges identified by Glen (2003), however, represent those found in a traditional project team environment and do not adequately reflect those that are required in a virtual team environment. Since team leaders are often physically separated from the team members, an added emphasis is placed on leader communication and relational skills. Thus additional leadership challenges imposed on virtual team leaders are in maintaining effective communications among team members in a real-time scenario and maintaining effective relational skills with the team members when there is no continual face-to-face presence of the team leader with the team. (more…)