Virtual Leadership: A Green Possibility in Critical Times but Can It Really Work?

INTRODUCTION The recent changes in the economic environment of the world today are drawing critical attention to all aspects of business operations. The efforts to keep businesses afloat are requiring some very drastic measures and really hard looks at what is being done by management. Nowhere is this more required than in the global business arena. The old ways were not very green or employee friendly. Here green does not only mean reducing paperwork, rather it includes the increased reliance on technologies to minimize unnecessary traditional team practices. Traditional paradigms and models are not meeting the needs of lean, austere and vibrant business operations of today. The global business operations we saw a decade ago are no longer going to be viable in the future if their past practices are adhered to as the standard for future operations. In particular, the way that global operations are managed by the "home office" or parent organization need to be overhauled and a new approach developed to meet the needs and demands of the changing world of global business operations for more green efficiencies and practices. Decentralized management, where decisions are made at the local or lowest appropriate level, is a very workable and effective trend. When taken to its natural application in global organizations, this would mean refraining form centralizing special project and other work teams by relocating one or most of the team members to a single location. Leaving the team members, including the leader or manager, in their best environment can improve productivity, facilitate team focus, reduce cultural adjustments, and minimize costs. These efficiencies can form the base of a "green" solution that does not require face-to-face team formation and operations. As might be expected the biggest challenge of going green is cost. The investment challenge confronting virtual leaders is the cost that accompanies incorporating green strategies. In this paper, green does not specifically mean the direct reduction of office resource uses or environmentally friendly office practices. Rather we are looking to reduce the global organization's traditional reliance on extensive travel and the relocation of experts or team members. Reilly & Ryan state that "(t)he advantages of virtual and global teams include reduced costs, greater accessibility to expertise, and mote effective deployment of resources. " (Spring 2007, para. 1) However, the potential benefits of stakeholder support must move beyond the short term gratifications. More organizations are opting to overcome the primary challenge of costs in order to achieve success in an increasingly future green environment. However, not all aspects of the virtual manager will be positive or totally green. There are some issues that need to be addressed as the role of this new management breed evolves. The technologies that are now available will help to address some of these but tomorrow's technologies should focus in on the specific needs of these virtual managers to make global management operations greener. THE GLOBAL MANAGEMENT CLASS Traditional management approaches to international, multinational and then global operations seemed to be evolving with the maturity of the management teams and perspectives over the last decade. In particular, the trend to make international management teams less ethno-centric or national-centric was on the rise. The original old model of sending home office experts and leaders overseas on long-term assignments was seen up through the end of the last century. This created the expatriate forces that represented home office interests and interpreted home office policies for so many organizations around the world. International organizations and operations, however, were not necessarily stable and assignments were becoming limited. So, these expats were forced to choose between returning home to try resurrecting their former career paths in a business environment that had left them behind years before or remaining on the expat management circuit with their families and careers. …