Leading a newly virtual team is difficult to carry out for any leader; doing so during a time of crisis is more challenging still. Leaders at all levels in industries across the country need to evaluate their management style to adapt the changing circumstances.

Here are a couple of ways in which to know if your team isn't working together well. If you see just a few members discussing, deciding, or acting in the name of the whole, if there are cliques or animosities within the team, and if there is a sense of rampant individualism. Further if members show up late or not at all. Lastly the biggest red flag would be if people resent impositions of their time or priorities, then a re-evaluation of the team needs to be looked at.

A key management philosophy that has been implemented at a number of highly thought of organizations is the Kurt Lewin equation that behaviour is a function of the person and their environment, represented in B = f (P,E). This can also be stated that the behaviours that people exhibit at work, and specifically in this case in a virtual team, are in a functional relationship of their personality that they carry as well as the life space that they are in. By paying keen attention to the needs of each individual person of the team, and making their environment at work as pleasurable for the whole person as possible.

Excellent leaders build teams with the following four elements to create a team growth. For a team to work well, you have to establish, as a leader, needing a common purpose that is meaningful to the team and to the individuals within the team. Also, setting specific performance goals will naturally flow out of these for the teams to strive for. The importance of mutual accountability as a contributing member to the team becomes the driving force not only to the team leader, but to the other members of the team. Finally, a strong commitment to task and process.

Task is what gets done. Words such as expertise, efficiency, activities, and decisions help accomplish the service and feed into solid productivity. It is easier to measure task in terms of productivity. It doesn't last for a long time without a good process.

So, the counterweight to having a task is having a process, which is the how of things get done. This relates to the identity of people in the team and the identity of the team itself. How members see the team and their involvement, as well as how the team is recognized and thought of within the organization's larger environment. What is the attractiveness of the team? Do people want to be on the team, do they want to take part? Are they getting personal satisfaction being on the team? Measurement of success in the process takes place in terms of cohesion and collaboration within team members.

The bottom line is that we make sure our team is physically and mentally prepared to work virtually or remotely when everyone is making significant adjustments to their daily lives.

*Repurposed from a presentation from Dr. Christine Pearson, expert in crisis management