Empowering followers in virtual teams: Guiding principles from theory and practice

  • Authors:

  • Ashley A. G. Walvoord;Elizabeth R. Redden;Linda R. Elliott;Michael D. Coovert

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Psychology, University of South Florida, 4202 E. Fowler Ave. PCD 4118g, Tampa, FL 33620, USA;Army Research Laboratory, ARL/HRED @ SAIC, Building 4, Rm 545, Fort Benning, GA 31905, United States;Army Research Laboratory, ARL/HRED @ SAIC, Building 4, Rm 545, Fort Benning, GA 31905, United States;Department of Psychology, University of South Florida, 4202 E. Fowler Ave. PCD 4118g, Tampa, FL 33620, USA and MDC and Associates, Inc., 4004 Stanley Rd., Plant City, FL 33565, United States

  • Venue:
  • Computers in Human Behavior
  • Year:
  • 2008

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Abstract

Effective leadership requires relationship skills such as - problem solving conflict management, motivation, communication, and listening [Yukl, G. A. (1998). Leadership in organizations. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall]. Arguably, nothing is more important to a leader than the skills involved in communicating one's intent to followers, for it is only through effectively transmitting intent that followers may understand and then execute the goals of the team and leader. The modern work-world is dominated by computer-mediated communication, and this communication is the bread and butter of virtual teams; however, simple transmission of information from point A to point B is not enough - the virtual environment presents significant challenges to effective communication. In this paper we review issues related to virtual teams and developments in multimodal displays that allow teams to communicate effectively via single or multiple modalities (e.g., visual, auditory, tactile). This discussion is grounded in guiding principles for design and use of information displays that were identified and culled based on multiple review criteria from an extensive review of the literature. We present an applied example of the utility of these guiding principles for multimodal display design, in the context of communicating a leader's presence to virtual followers via commander's intent.