Building Trust in Virtual Teams - Leadership Role - Research Paper Example

Leadership in Virtual TeamsLeaders are not born, they are made. This is one of the sayings that has been pretty much used in movies or said to ensue the reality that leadership is a responsibility that requires a lot of hard work. While some are born to be followers, some people are made to be great leaders. And if you are someone who thinks that leadership is key to drive real teamwork, there are a lot of things one must succumb to before achieving the fruits of being an effective leader.We all, for sure know a lot of attributes and factors that a leader should be or have.

A leader should be someone who is willing to serve than to be served, has a strong will to be able to bring a group together despite probably different interests and opinions, and perhaps someone who has enough knowledge to instruct his fellow team members. However, when you come to think of it, before all these are actually even possible, there is one thing that needs to be achieved which is no other than trust. Trust is indeed the foundation of real teamwork and is something that will enable a leader to be able to lead a group effectively to a specific goal (Hung, Yu-Ting Caisy, Alan R.

Dennis, and Lionel Robert).We all know that every follower has their own set of interests that would not easily be influenced by a leader they do not trust. Thus, if you want to be a leader who does not influence one’s followers, one key to this is to not win their trust. Why? Well, this is because of the fact that the only thing that would make people listen to what you, as a leader would have to say, let alone you are a total stranger to them, is because of the fact that they see something good about you or clean in your intentions that would be beneficial for the whole group.

That is why, to be able to start winning the trust of people or your team is to avoid focusing on putting words in their mouths or manipulating them over your highfaluting goals and start with what you, as a leader has to say about moral duty or commitment you are willing to give to the team (Hung, Yu-Ting Caisy, Alan R. Dennis, and Lionel Robert). Once this has been established, a leader now gains that voice to reflect the goals and at the same time for that voice to actually be heard. However, it is important to know that it does not end in laying out the big picture of the do’s and don’ts to your team to be able to achieve a certain goal.

In a way, understanding human nature, where self interest can never be set apart, should be considered aside from the social considerations of any goal set for a team. After setting the right environment for a whole team to be able to work together for a common good by establishing trust, it is important to know which kind of approach one has to do to get the trust of one’s team members to be able to be an effective leader. We all know that not all teams have the same personality or perhaps drive.

One of the most commonly practiced trust based approach is called Deterrence-based trust which is a kind of trust that depends on consistent behavior and makes play threat of punishment as a central working factor in order to demand allegiance to the whole group (Lewicki, Roy J., Barbara B. Bunker, Morton Deutsch, and Jeffrey Z. Rubin & Associates). Usually, this works on a team that has stronger inclinations to their inner self interest rather than the social goal at stake. At the same time the leader here has a more challenging job of being able to establish trust from one’s team members by smoothly tackling their self interests at the same time making them see how this should be in line with the team’s common goal.

Another kind of trust would be the Calculus-based trust which focuses more on the rewards for cooperating in the team (Lewicki, Roy J., Barbara B. Bunker, Morton Deutsch, and Jeffrey Z. Rubin & Associates). This kind of approach should be taken by a leader who has a team that are easier to motivate or those who are more interested in the outcome rather than the journey on getting there. Indeed, leadership is something that is best established in trust, because of the main reason that with trust, certain relationships between totally different people in a team is developed which aids in utmost communication and commitment within a team (Mancini, Dale J.). With this in mind, once a leader is able to have that comfortable environment where everyone feels free to speak out one’s ideas and suggestions, such a team would definitely be considered as gaining more knowledge and leverage over a team where there is just one person who does the talking or where everybody wants to do the talking all at the same time.

You know these are two different stories but with just one outcome which is unproductiveness. References:Hung, Yu-Ting Caisy, Alan R. Dennis, and Lionel Robert. Trust in Virtual Teams:Towards An Integrative Model of Trust Formation . Hawaii : Kelly School of Business Indiana University Bloomington IN 47405, 2004. Print.Mancini, Dale J.. Building Organizational Trust in Virtual Teams. United States of America: Argosy University , 0. Print.Lewicki, Roy J., Barbara B. Bunker, Morton Deutsch, and Jeffrey Z.

Rubin & Associates. Trust In Relationships. Chicago: Diamond Management Consulting, 0. Print.Mancini, Dale J.. Building Organizational Trust in Virtual Teams. United States of America: Argosy University , 0. Print.Lewicki, Roy J., Barbara B. Bunker, Morton Deutsch, and Jeffrey Z. Rubin & Associates. Trust In Relationships. Chicago: Diamond Management Consulting, 0. Print.