Principles and Practices of Effective Leadership Critical Thinking Mod Essay - 5

Principles and Practices of Effective Leadership Critical Thinking Mod 5 Leading Teams - Essay Example One of the advantages of the use of virtual teams is that it allows companies the ability to optimize the use of its human capital. Companies that use virtual teams are able to take advantage of the skills and capabilities of employees of the company that are located in foreign countries. There are differences in the managerial approaches that leaders use when working with a virtual team in comparison to face-to-face teams. Leaders that have a face to face team can use any of the traditional managerial concepts and theories such as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, equity theory, ERG theory, acquired needs theory, or reinforcement to lead the staff. The five needs of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in ascending order are physiological, safety, social, esteem, and self-actualization (Cherry, 2013). Intrinsic rewards are effective to keep the members of a team productive and motivated. An example of an intrinsic reward is telling a person they did a good job on a task. Managers have to pay attention to the body language of the members of team as a preventive measure to ensure the members of the team are not suffering from morale problems. When dealing with a virtual team the manager has to adapt his leadership strategy. Virtual teams require the use of electronic communication tools such as groupware or video chatting capabilities. An excellent website that allows people from different parts of the world to communicate using video chatting is Skype. It is important for leaders to closely monitor the progress on the project by following up with the members of the team. Avoiding information overload in virtual teams is important because information overload can cause stress and inefficiencies among the members of the team. â€Å"There are more global virtual teams today than ever before† (Meyer,