Running head: EMPOWERING LEADERSHIP AND EFFECTIVE COLLABORATION

Empowering Leadership and Effective Collaboration

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EMPOWERING LEADERSHIP AND EFFECTIVE COLLABORATION 2

Introduction

Geographical dispersion can obstruct productive exchange of knowledge, co-ordination,

problem solving, morale building, and the successful settlement of disputes with those in the

team (Morrison-Smith and Ruiz, 2020). Many researchers have identified that, in the face of

such hurdles, the significance of team leaders in fostering virtual teamwork that leads to high

success levels in distributed teams becomes vital. The complexities of teamwork in such

communities and the related difficulties of tracking team member activities entail the allocation

of leadership roles to team members in their core theorization of leadership in distributed teams,

while at the same time encouraging teamwork among them.

Team Collaboration

Irrespective of how individuals are coordinated, except with the most seasoned managers,

overseeing a team that is distributed out in multiple ways will bring massive obstacles. When

you interact with a certain team member a lot than others, then how can you guarantee that

everyone knows that they are handled fairly? Technology leads to improvements in the ways we

operate, and it makes it possible to have remote employees efficiently. Via a reduction in

overhead and other costs of running a conventional workplace, businesses gain greatly. Remote

employees are also more pleased with their positions and, in a more relaxed atmosphere, they

can achieve a healthier work-life balance, reduce exhausting commutes and work (Song et al.,

2020). To overcome the challenges associated with geographically dispersed team, the business

can employ a variety of techniques and tactics. Some of which includes:

Communicating Responsively
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Timely coordination is among the most important aspects of creating a good team.

Irrespective to where their participants are based, this is the reality of teams. The value of

communication should not be underestimated. Leaders and team members ought to be devoted to

frequent and open contact to function safely and effectively. Since the work conducted in most

teams is extremely integrated, lag time may take place between when communications, projects,

or requests are received and when the receiver responds to them.

Being Flexible and Patient

It takes an additional amount of versatility and patience to be the leader of a

geographically diverse squad. Know, with the rest of the team, your attitude and actions will set

the stage, shaping how they cooperate and interact with each other. To collaborate effectively,

team leaders devise some rules for remote meetings meant for keeping the team focused on the

relevant topics of discussion as well as the work to be done.

Establishing Accountability and Measuring Progress

While employees are remotely working, it becomes easy for them to lose focus of how

the work is progressing. To ensure team members are in line with the day’s activities, team

leaders ensure that members receive frequent and up-to-date information via the different

enterprise communication channels or via the visible systems that portray KPIs and metrics

(Jones et al., 2020). Furthermore, leaders of geographically dispersed ensure that the team’s

expectation are clear and consistent. As a result, the team leader is able to prioritize on time, job

execution, and in coaching team members.

Supporting Connection and Team Unity

One of the weaknesses of geographically dispersed teams is the missing emotional

connection between members and their leaders. To mitigate this shortcoming and for the purpose

of effective collaboration and communication, leaders ensure that their team members feel as

being part of the team and the overall community. More so, leaders create a means for

facilitating communication, engagement and connection.

Three Tools

It's not easy to handle a geographically scattered squad, but it's not difficult, particularly

for small organizations. To ensure your company moves smoothly, i.e., you need to concentrate

on a few main things. Communications, usability and protection of data and management of

programs.  However, there are some tools that can aid the business with the supervision and

coordination of the geographically scattered teams in those regions. These tools include: slack,

ryver, and Google Hangouts.

Slack

Slack is an online portal aimed at enhancing team collaboration and provides academic

communities with some desirable features (Lin, 2020).  Users exchange resources with peers via

chat rooms arranged by subject, explore individual ideas or projects, and identify more about

what people are working on. Via Slack, users are able to chat in real-time and to build an

ongoing “channel” also referred as chatrooms. On specific topics and ideas. The tool is designed

to be integrated with a number of online tools that aid in project management, tracking websites

social networking, and other business needs. Slack presents the following benefits to a business

and a geographically dispersed team:

Pros
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 Within the business, you will build "channels." For starters, for each customer, you may

provide Slack channels that comprise of all the co-workers engaged with that client

project. It helps in sharing and collaborating in real-time with others. This is perfect

especially when a deadline requires an urgent response.

 It's easy to share with team-members something amusing or off-topic.

 Thanks to great encryption, the data inside the platform is still secured.

 You will immediately import it on the desktop and it even has a completely working

mobile version.

Cons

 After 14 days, the communications are erased, so if anything significant is sent to you

within a channel, ensure you keep a copy of it.

 Minimal file protection is in place. It can be annoying when files are sent by Slack

instead of email, since you only have as much storage as you want to pay for as a

business, since Slack erases files slowly over time.

 It may be a distraction. You can quickly get sucked into any conversation if you're not

cautious.

 Seeing Slack updates all day long. When you get a new message(s), it has various ways

to alert you, which provides the stimulus to see what's happening.

Ryver

Ryver is a modern, more efficient way of communicating with your teammates. With

the organization and influence of posts and comments, Ryver blends the freedom and immediacy

of chat. you can even exchange files and Ryver can keep them structured. Posts at Ryver are
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similar to Facebook posts. Each posting is a matter of debate, with support for attachments, and

by comments threaded discourse. Simple formatting such as bold and bullets is simple to include

in Ryver to make your post more readable.

Pros

It has a community chat that tackles collaboration together to build a very well planned

knowledge base. The tasks are handled very quickly. It is clear that Ryver strengthens the way of

collaboration and provides an excellent framework to connect with the members of the team. The

gui is incredibly gorgeous.

Cons

It has customized settings questions, is a bit cumbersome and does not sync with other third

party app integrations.

Google Hangouts

Google Hangouts facilitates contact with team members via audio, video, and

conversation. It is perfect especially if the business use Google Products since, it's a native

Google product (Rhoads et al., 2018).

Pros

You can stream Google Hangouts online, encouraging everyone to listen and watch you, also

giving you the ability to pick who can join in the recording. You have the luxury of allowing

your audience to see the screen you are attached to, if you are using your Hangout session for

work or marketing purposes. For example, whether you are working from home or traveling, you
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might use Google Hangouts to communicate with your workers and see the interactive tasks on

which they are working in real time.

Cons

To enjoy all Google Hangouts functionality, including video conferencing, you need to sign up

for Google+. You can't communicate via Google Hangouts if you have a Google+ account, but

your friend doesn't. With Google Hangouts, you cannot check whether your message has been

received and read by the other person.

Selected Tool

The selected tool for managing geographically dispersed teams is the Slack. Presumably

Slack's biggest benefit in the new environment is that it's so well-known. For both a free and paid

variant of the tool available, anybody can start utilizing Slack with convenience, based on what

you need in regards to features and functionality. What's more, most people in the market world

are still dependent on connectivity instruments similar to slack, which renders acceptance fast.

The fact that it comes with too many integrations available for use is another feature of Slack.

While once you subscribe to the full subscription service, there are only a couple of variations

possible in the free edition, the possibilities to extend the interactive tool are virtually limitless.

Conclusion

Geographically distributed teams, regardless of their venue, can deliver tremendous

advantages: productivity, cost savings, and the flexibility to select team members with the right

skills. Select the best team players to help the team perform well, and ensure that you have

effective networking technologies. Unite the colleagues under a team charter, and simply and

regularly express priorities.

Reference

Jones, B., Tang, A., & Neustaedter, C. (2020). Remote communication in wilderness search and

rescue: implications for the design of emergency distributed-collaboration tools for

network-sparse environments. Proceedings of the ACM on human-computer interaction,

4(GROUP), 1-26.

Lin, J. (2020, May). Picking up the slack: collaboration tools to build community and increase

productivity in nephrology. In Seminars in nephrology (Vol. 40, No. 3, pp. 298-302). WB

Saunders.

Morrison-Smith, S., & Ruiz, J. (2020). Challenges and barriers in virtual teams: a literature

review. SN Applied Sciences, 2, 1-33.

Rhoads, M., Sierra, H., & Toro, J. T. M. (2018). Collaboration Tools. Igniting Your Teaching

with Educational Technology.

Song, L., Wang, Y., Li, Z., Yang, Y., & Li, H. (2020). Mental health and work attitudes among

people resuming work during the Covid-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional study in China.

International journal of environmental research and public health, 17(14), 5059.\