Leadership: Building Successful Relationships
Q1. Effective leaders today often need to foster relationship building in an online environment, which is more challenging than doing so face to face. The leader's strategy in virtual teams is to use an ongoing process of relationship building in which team members are fully engaged in the work process and the leader is managing the process electronically across all boundaries, including time, space, organization, and culture (Pauleen, 2004, p. 230). These strategies improve the organization's success by motivating the team.
Q2. Relationship building in a global organization
In a global organization, relationship building is accomplished by adding further structure to the team and ensuring that the team members are equipped to handle virtual collaborations and find resources they can use to produce solutions within their own region (Morgan, 2003, p. 9). Building social capital is another effective approach (Uhl-Bien, 2003, p. 131). The unique challenges of relationship building within a global organization include clashing cultures, problems with distance reporting and monitoring, and assessing the performance of team members that the leader rarely sees (Morgan, 2003, p. 7).
Q3. The strategies I use most often include equipping team members and building social capital. When I need team members to collaborate on a project, I ensure that they have everything they need, and I provide guidance as requested. This has produced excellent results. When I need the team to engage the support of clients, I promote the building of social capital. Clients respond positively to this approach and are very helpful as a result.
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