In the blink of an eye, the new normal has become working from home. The expectation is to become a high performing team that is able to collaborate remotely and successfully achieve all of its goals. This means that overnight, leaders are expected to become experts in how to lead collaboration in virtual teams.

New technology such as video conferencing, Google Docs, and remote desktops give us ways to collaborate without being in the same physical space. Learning new technology can help leaders facilitate virtual collaboration. Technology provides valuable tools that help us to navigate working remotely. However, there are some items that are critical to leading collaboration in a virtual world: trust and communication.

Why are Trust and Communication so important?

Trust is the firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something. Communication is imparting or exchanging of information or news, ideas, or feelings. Trust and communication are important to teams, whether they are virtual or not. But they are even more important to remote teams because there is no physical interaction to draw from. Trust develops differently with virtual teams. Colleagues in an office setting typically build relationships and trust through social interaction and collaborative work. In a virtual work environment, there are reduced opportunities to form social bonds and obtain non-verbal cues. This creates an increased likelihood for miscommunications, misunderstandings, and hurt feelings.

It is challenging to build a strong team without typical daily physical interactions to make trust and communication your foundation. However, there are six steps that leaders can take to avoid pitfalls.

How can leaders build a virtual collaborative team?

The six simple steps that every leader can take to foster collaborative teams are:

• Act with Integrity – Lead with morals and honesty. Ethics will always guide a leader with integrity. If your virtual team consistently sees you acting with integrity, it will help them to believe you will treat them fairly and begin to establish trust.
• Communicate Goals and Objectives – Know what the desired outcome is and be able to clearly convey it to your team. If you do not tell your team where they are going, they will never arrive at the desired destination. In a virtual work environment, there will be fewer physical cues to help your team correct course if they get off track.
• Check in on the Team – Monitor the well-being of your team, including mental, physical, and emotional needs. Be open to exchanging feedback. In a virtual work environment, you will have less non-verbal warning signs if something is wrong. It is crucial that you take the extra time and effort to check in on the team.
• Provide Clear Standards – Set up ground rules and establish guidelines for how the team will interact with clients, customers, key stakeholders, and each other. When working with virtual teams, this must be established early on. Since their leader is not physically there, having clear standards provides support to the team.
• Respect Schedules – Be on time for meetings and business calls. Have regard for your teams’ planned business hours. This simple courtesy will show your team that you have respect for them and for their time.
• Recognize Contributions – Acknowledge the hard work and time your team sacrifices to accomplish the workload. Sometimes it may take longer to accomplish a goal when working remotely. Be sure to let your team know you appreciate all they do to help the team be successful!

Following these six simple steps will help your virtual team become collaborative and high performing!

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