The document provides an overview of the stages of virtual team development and recommendations for leading teams at the early dependence and inclusion stage. It discusses how to build relationships, trust, and establish rules and roles to set the team up for success. Specifically, it recommends that leaders at this stage focus on communication, relationship building through informal discussions, agreeing on goals and responsibilities together, and choosing technologies that support interaction among diverse members. Establishing these foundational elements early on helps virtual teams overcome challenges and work effectively.

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How to lead virtual teams?
- Dependence & Inclusion

2. CONTENT
2
Overview of the Team development stages
Develop your team!
• Build relationships
• Build trust and create safe atmosphere
• Agree on the team rules & roles
Recommendation for the virtual team
leaders at stage 1
References & Suggested readings

3. - Getting to know each other
- Finding out and
understanding about - the
team objectives, values and
rules
- Respecting leadership
- Including all team members
in the process
- Forming subgroups
- Competition in teams
- Conflicts are increasing
- Leadership changes
- Aggressive feedback
- Clarity in objectives and tasks
- Understanding how to deal
with the conflicts
- Collaboration in working
- Forming a stronger
relationship with team
members
- Solving problems
collectively in a team
- Decision making is made as
a group
- Constructive feedback
- Safe and secure working
environment
- Clear communication
Stage 1
Dependence &
Inclusion
Stage 2
Counterdependence &
Fight
Stage 3
Trust & Structure
Stage 4
Work & Productivity
OVERVIEW OF THE TEAM DEVELOPMENT STAGES
(Adapted from Wheelan 2005 & Wijaya 2018)

4. DEVELOP YOUR TEAM!
4
Stage 1 is called Dependence and Inclusion.
At this stage team members are leader-focused
and seek to get to know each other. They are
polite and follow rules. In this stage, the team
members are hesitant to express opinions which
differ from the opinions of others.
Leader is expected to provide direction and
safety. (e.g. Åkerlund, Jacobsson & Tilin 2020,
104.)
Critical factors for the virtual team success at this
stage are:
• Relationship building
• Psychological safety & trust
• Virtual team rules & roles

5. BUILD RELATIONSHIPS
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Respectful and trusty relationships are needed for
effective virtual teamwork.
When a multidisciplinary and multicultural virtual team
starts to work it is critical at the first stages of team
development to give the team members time to get to
know each other.
• Informal asynchronous discussions before the
virtual meetings will encourage the members from
introvert cultures and members with some language
uncertainty into discussions.
• Synchronous virtual meetings will deepen these
discussions and deliver also cues (for example
emotions) especially, when webcams are on.
“building relationships with
virtual team members is clearly of
fundamental importance to a
virtual team leader, as people
generally rely on personal
relationships to resolve problems
and to deal with unusual
situations”
- Pauleen, D.J.-

6. BUILD RELATIONSHIPS
6
Cooperative relationships are constructed by
• clarifying work goals and communication norms,
• ensuring regular interaction and immediate feedback
• allowing team members to communicate in the way and
frequency they feel comfortable with.
• promoting open communication from employees.
• developing forums or “areas” in which employees can
communicate about informal and non-work related topics.

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BUILD RELATIONSHIPS
The choice of appropriate technologies in
virtual teams with diverse team members
is crucial for the team effectiveness. To build
relationships the technology should:
• deliver cues such as emotions through
facial expression, voice tone, etc.
• enable social information exchange
(Jawadi 2013)
The importance and complexity of the
technology choice is explained in the Media
synchronicity Theory (MST) by Dennis, Fuller,
& Valacich (2008).
(Dennis & al. 2008)

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BUILD TRUST AND CREATE SAFE ATMOSPHERE
• When the virtual team members get to know each
other both cognitive (trust on the competence of
others) and affective (confidence in others based
on the feelings) trust will be built.
• Trust is the key success factor in projects and is
needed for psychologically safe working
environment
• “Psychological safety is a belief that one will not
be punished or humiliated for speaking up with
ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes.“ Amy
Edmondson, Harvard Business School Professor
• Everyone in a team has a responsibility to build
trust.
“Trust is often seen as a sensitive
resource because it is demanding
and time-consuming to build, but
it can be broken down easily and
quickly”
(Leppäkoski & Varhelahti 2021)

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BUILD TRUST AND CREATE SAFE ATMOSPHERE
Integrated Conceptual Model of the Nomological Network of Trust in VTs
(Hacker & al. 2019)

10. BUILD TRUST AND CREATE SAFE
ATMOSPHERE
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Sometimes there is no time to build a trusting relationship.
Most global virtual teams exist for only a short period working
on a project with a tight deadline.
• Swift Trust is an early assumption that the virtual team
is trustworthy. This assumption is verified through actions
around the joint task, scheduling, and monitoring.
• Swift trust is developed quickly by a group that is still in
the early stages of working together.
• Leader´s positive attitude and open communications can
help build these assumptions as well as a belief that the
team has the competence to deliver effective results.
Barriers affecting the creation of swift trust in virtual teams.
(Germain & McGuire 2014).

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• Common policy and rules are seen as
enablers of effective teamwork and creating
them means developing a shared
understanding of how the team wants to work
together.
• Despite the team is leader-focused at the
first development stage, the rules for working
and communication are created within the
team.
• Rules and roles should be reviewed and
discussed throughout the teamwork.
AGREE ON THE TEAM RULES & ROLES
Proper leadership results in a
shared culture, common
policy and rules for
communication and
teamwork.

12. AGREE ON THE TEAM RULES & ROLES
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1. Let the team members explain the tools and
functions to each other. Ensure that your team
really has the same level of understanding of every
single tool that is used and for what purposes.
2. Hold a meeting to clarify the team goals as well as
roles and responsibilities. Have members repeat
their responsibilities for themselves by using for
example Team Canvas.
3. Create a set of rules of engagement and
boundaries together as a team. Agree for example
on use of webcams in meetings, reaction times to
emails, lunch hours, free-time work-time
boundaries, preferred style to communicate.
(adapted and modified from Lechner & Mortlock, 2021)

13. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE TEAM LEADERS AT
STAGE 1
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• Communication is the main factor in teamwork. In virtual
context, the technology plays a crucial role. Choose the
technology with your team to support interaction between
culturally, linguistically and professionally diverse team
members.
• Virtual teams need more time to build relationships and
trust than F2F teams. Allow time for informal
discussions and engage team members in a dialogue.
• Agree together with your team on rules and goals to
avoid misunderstandings and to enhance well-being (for
example by agreeing on working times across time zones.)
• Use your emotional intelligence to support the team
members to start collaboration.
• Communicate, communicate and communicate!
Needed from the leader
• ability to facilitate and engage team
members in discussions
• competence to build relationships and
trust
• competence to communicate through
technologies
• high degree of empathy

14. REFERENCES & SUGGESTED READINGS
14
Ahmad, F., & Widén, G. (2015). Language clustering and knowledge sharing in multilingual organizations: A social perspective on language. Journal of Information Science, 41(4), 430–443.
Albream, F. & Maraqa, M. (2019). The impact of adopting e-collaboration tools on knowledge management processes. Management science letters, 9(7),1009-1028. doi:10.5267/j.msl.2019.4.004.
Castellano, S., Chandavimol, K., Khelladi, I., & Orhan, M. A. (2021). Impact of self-leadership and shared leadership on the performance of virtual r&d teams. Journal of Business Research, 128, 578-586.
Crisp, C. B. & Jarvenpaa, S.L., (2013). Swift trust in global virtual teams trusting beliefs and normative actions. Journal of personnel psychology, 12 (1), 45-56.
Dennis, A. R., Fuller, R. M. & Valacich, J. S. (2008). Media, tasks and communication processes: A theory of media synchronicity. MIS Quarterly 32(3), 575–600.
Germain, M. L., & McGuire, D. (2014). The role of swift trust in virtual teams and implications for human resource development. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 16(3), 356-370.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281763932_The_Role_of_Swift_Trust_in_Virtual_Teams_and_Implications_for_Human_Resource_Development [accessed Jan 10 2022].
Ford, R. C., Piccolo, R. F., & Ford, L. R. (2017). Strategies for building effective virtual teams: Trust is key. Business Horizons, 60(1), 25-34.
Hacker, J. V., Johnson, M., Saunders, C., & Thayer, A. L. (2019). Trust in virtual teams: A multidisciplinary review and integration. Australasian Journal of Information Systems, 23.
Jawadi, N., Daassi, M., Favier, M., & Kalika, M. (2013). Relationship building in virtual teams: A leadership behavioral complexity perspective. Human Systems Management, 32(3), 199-211.
Kashian, N. & Walther, J. B. (2020). The Effect of Relational Satisfaction and Media Synchronicity on Attributions in Computer-Mediated Conflict. Communication research, 47(5), pp. 647-668. doi:10.1177/0093650218789581
Lechner, A. & Mortlock, J.T., (2021) How to create psychological safety in virtual teams, Organ Dyn., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orgdyn.2021.100849
Liao, C. (2017). Leadership in virtual teams: A multilevel perspective. Human Resource Management Review, 27(4), 648-659.
Mazmanian, M., Orlikowski, W. J. & Yates, J. (2013). The autonomy paradox: The implications of mobile email devices for knowledge professionals. Organization Science 24(5), 1337–1357.
Memon, A. B. & Meyer, K. (2017). Why We Need Dedicated Web-based Collaboration Platforms for Inter-organizational Connectivity? A Research Synthesis. International journal of information technology and computer science,
9(11), 1-11. doi:10.5815/ijitcs.2017.11.01.
Meyerson, D., Weick, K. E., & Kramer, R. M. (1996). Swift trust and temporary groups. In Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Müller, R., & Antoni, C. H. (2020). Individual perceptions of shared mental models of information and communication technology (ICT) and virtual team coordination and performance—The moderating role of flexibility in ICT use.
Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 24(3), 186. https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2020-48733-001.pdf
Pauleen, D.J. An Inductively Derived Model of LeaderInitiated Relationship Building with Virtual Team Members, Journal of Management Information Systems 20(3) (2003- 2004), 227–256
Åkerlund, M., Jacobsson, C. & Tilin, F. (2021). The Legacy of Susan Wheelan. Small Group Research, 52(1).
Varhelahti, M., & Turnquist, T. (2021). Diversity and Communication in Virtual Project Teams. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 64(2), 201-214.
Wheelan, S.s: (2005). Group Processes: A Developmental Perspective. Boston, MA, USA: Allyn Bacon..

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