Characteristics that increase the ‘intelligence’ of teams include group members speaking in turns, the proportion of females on a team and social sensitivity. But are these initiatives more difficult in virtual teams? Given that many people work in virtual settings today, it is worthwhile considering how these recommendations influence team intelligence when team members are scattered in different locations.
There are reasons to believe that virtual team IQ may actually be higher than — or, at least, equal to — equivalent non-virtual teams. Depending on the richness of the media used for virtual meetings and other communication within the team, body language and facial expressions are, of course, harder to read and social sensitivity requires more intuition. However, speaking in turns becomes easier when physical appearances matter less, and people tend to express their opinions more freely online than in face-to-face settings. Because status cues are less visible, the merit of an argument will trump charisma or enthusiasm in a virtual setting. An imposing physical appearance or a ‘charming personality’ may allow one individual to dominate a face-to-face meeting, but in a virtual setting these qualities are somewhat neutralised, allowing participants to flourish on the basis of the accomplishments and skills that they bring to the team.
Reflect upon attempts to do group projects via Zoom or related technologies:
1 what have been the challenges of working in a virtual team?
.In answering the above question, explicitly apply concepts from this session such as:
challenges for preferential role;
challenges to social capital building;
challenges for task or relationship focused people etc.
CASE 2 200 words please
According to New Zealand law firm Simpson Grierson, by far the majority of intimidation claims are made against supervisors. Partner John Rooney argues that there are two kinds of bullies — those who don’t realise they are making other people’s lives hell and those who enjoy it. Intriguingly, recent research has shown that the dichotomy between the bully and the victim is not so clear-cut. According to Linton and Power, a significant majority of bullies (89.7 per cent) and a significant number of victims (41.7 per cent) were both perpetrators and victims at least once a week, over the course of six months (known as bully/victims). Following their research, Linton and Power advised employers to be aware of the bully/victim syndrome in an effort to reduce workplace bullying.
The acceptability of workplace bullying across countries has been the focus of recent workplace studies. For example, the findings of Power et al. reveal that workplace bullying has been found to be more acceptable than intimidating someone physically.56 The same was found across culture groups as well as globally. They also found that cultures that focused on future and human values were less tolerant of bullying than high-performance cultures. Across the globe, the research also showed that ‘Confucian Asia’ was more accepting of workplace bullying than Anglo-Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, and more accepting of physically intimidating bullying than Anglo-Latin America. A 2016 study conducted by the University of Wollongong reports that 50 per cent of all Australians are bullied in the workplace over their working lives, with many being bullied at the beginning of their careers. Most at risk were found to be poorly supported young men. Workplace bullying included being verbally abused, being isolated from colleagues, creating false stories and controlling information.
Suffering from severe mental disorders and after being hospitalised, 64-year-old Kerin Kenny, who had been a corporate executive for over 30 years, describes how she could not return to work because ‘there were several incidents where I look back now and I had been insidiously undermined in the role and then there was a situation where I was publicly embarrassed’. Four years later, she is improving and speaking for the highly successful Australian mental health organisation beyondblue
Give two examples of assertive managerial Behaviour that would constitute bullying and two examples that are legitimate command and control.
Why is an absence of conflict not necessarily evidence of an absence of politics?
