The caliber of leadership on any virtual team plays a critical role in the levels of success and innovation that can be achieved. Review this checklist to determine whether or not your virtual leadership skills are honed to a keen edge or need some improvements.
- You’re more comfortable delegating tasks and providing coaching and support to your team than doing things yourself.
- You engage your virtual team in collaboratively creating a vision of success and agreeing on what behaviors will positively influence results.
- You have clear expectations on how the team will use technology to stay connected.
- Before committing to a team decision, you encourage the team to discuss if it’s in alignment with your purpose, values, and goals. Together you decide to say no to requests that aren’t aligned.
- Your team trusts you and your effectiveness as a leader.
- You walk my talk when demonstrating your team values and staying connected.
- You have a pulse on the energy of the team and where conflict or obstacles may exist.
- You address conflict openly and quickly with the team, taking great care to respect different viewpoints and encourage solution-focused thinking.
- You view problems as opportunities to excel and create a learning culture on your team. You share mistakes and lessons learned frequently.
- The team meetings have an agenda, stay on time, and give everyone the opportunity to contribute.
- You seek out opportunities for education and skills enhancement for the team with a focus on continually staying on top of best practices and growing the team’s abilities.
- Everything that happens on the team whether positive or negative is a reflection of your leadership. If things need to change, you need to change first.
- You quickly address any performance issues and have virtual face-to-face meetings with team members who aren’t meeting expectations.
- You consistently recognize team members for their accomplishments and encourage others to speak up when another team member has made a difference for them.
- You’re open to new suggestions and ideas and frequently ask for feedback on your performance.
- You don’t accept credit for successes but rather attribute them freely to your team.
- You regularly align team member work tasks to the vision and values that are important to the team.
