Leading Global Virtual Teams

Given the recent focus on team process and outcome improvements, shared leadership is a promising avenue of research for Global Virtual Teams (GVTs) in terms of its potentially mitigating effects on performance decrements often associated with virtual teamwork. However, effective shared team leadership can be difficult to achieve in global and virtual environments because the geographic distribution of members reduces the ability of individuals to exhibit such influence. Therefore, understanding the factors that may improve the likelihood of successful shared team leadership in these environments is critical. Thus, the purpose of this chapter is to discuss how shared leadership in GVTs can improve team performance. In doing so, the authors define GVTs, discuss how shared leadership can be implemented in a GVT setting, address specific challenges GVTs might encounter in the implementation of shared leadership, and present recommendations for practice drawing on team cognition models and trust research.