Inclusive Leadership and Virtual Teams

Cultural Competence Skill for Critical Leadership

To address the current trends of inclusive leadership, growing multicultural society, globalization, and virtual teams, cultural competence is an essential skill that should be developed for critical leadership. The skill of cultural competence refers to the ability to function in diverse and cross-cultural situations in the workforce where diversity is appreciated (Pusch, 2009). Leaders who possess cultural competence can navigate the diversity in the work environment and stay aware of others’ cultural identities while sticking to their own distinctive ones with ease and authenticity.

Leaders with such ability can understand and appreciate the different patterns and styles of interactions in a customer service environment so that they can be well aware of their cultural biases and have the ability to manage such biases at work. Furthermore, this ability allows leaders to strive for inclusive actions where they can play as role models for building and promoting social consciousness on issues of ethnicity and social justice. This ability also helps diverse teams in a multicultural society, builds cross-cultural fluency among virtual teams, promotes trust, and helps individuals grow irrespective of gender.

Relationship between Inclusive and Relational Leadership Styles

Inclusive leadership and relational leadership are two distinct leadership styles that are interconnected as both create an environment that promotes organizational trust. Relational leadership emphasizes all employee perspectives and the importance of work relationships in the workforce to consider and identify what changes should be made and what concerns employees would have before or after implementing a change in the organization. This style values inclusion, purposefulness, process orientation, and empowerment in a work environment so that everyone’s viewpoint can be valued while making decisions (Uhl-Bien, 2006).

Inclusive leadership, on the other hand, involves an ability to lead a group of people with inclusivity and diversity who are aware of an implicit bias and are open to a diverse employee perspective. This leadership style demonstrates respect and openness to each individual’s unique characteristics so that all employees can feel valued and empowered for their uniqueness without facing any bias in their workforce (Bourke et al., 2020). The relationship between both leadership styles lies in their shared focus on consideration of diverse perspectives and inclusion which recognize individual contributions, foster trust, enhance collaboration, and improve innovation.

Challenges to Virtual Teams and Achieving Virtual Teams’ Effectiveness

Technology has advanced the organizational field but it has also posed some challenges to virtual teams that include misinterpretations of communication, difficult collaboration due to lack of cohesion, lack of efficiency because of less or no access to some resources and tools, misunderstandings due to cultural differences, and less productivity due to lack of accountability (Morrison-Smith & Ruiz, 2020). So, leadership can be a challenge for virtual teams because teams may have a lack of motivation and direction due to not having interaction with their leaders in person. To overcome this challenge, leaders of the virtual teams should establish clear goals and objectives for each individual member of the team regarding work as well as communicate directly with their team members on a regular basis.

References

Bourke, J., Titus, A., & Espedido, A. (2020). The key to inclusive leadership. Harvard Business Review, 6.

Morrison-Smith, S., & Ruiz, J. (2020). Challenges and barriers in virtual teams: A literature review. SN Applied Sciences, 2, 1–33.

Pusch, M. D. (2009). The interculturally competent global leader. The SAGE Handbook of Intercultural Competence, 66–84.

Uhl-Bien, M. (2006). Relational leadership theory: Exploring the social processes of leadership and organizing. The Leadership Quarterly, 17(6), 654–676.