Leadership and Groups

There are several things that are primarily different between face-to-face and virtual teams. The first difference and the most important is trust. Creation of the management of a virtual organization is very hard without trust. How can you trust someone if you never see them? For that matter never see their body language, which is a very important factor of nonverbal communication. A second primary difference is identity. A critical role in communication is identity and it can be uncertain with spatial borders between separate members (Geisler, 2002). Along with that personality traits and social roles can also be hard to identify. The information in a virtual world is scattered over space and time unlike the physical world that consist of matter.

A third major difference is technological problems. Virtual teams require multimedia communications such as videoconferencing, teleconferencing, instant messaging, and electronic meetings. This kind of infrastructure in certain areas is not available and can be at some great cost to the organization (Geisler, 2002). When considering the appropriate technologies the cost of maintaining them needs to be considered also. The equipment and software may be designed for conventional offices and in a virtual environment may not be adaptable. Whether or not that technology can increase or improve productivity or outcomes is highly dependant on how it is applied.

One more difference is organizational barriers. The success of virtual team management might be hard for mangers to grasp because of the new methods of supervision required. This can possibly prevent a common ground being developed by the organizations. The key factor is to make sure the work is being done and not being able to rely on visual contact frequently with the employee which can create an organizational barrier (Geisler, 2002). Traditional organizations are dependent on the manager’s defined tasks, time frame, and resources. However in a virtual world the delivery of the manager’s defined tasks, time frame, and resources is highly dependent on the collective