Leading the Virtual Workforce: How Great Leaders Transform Organizations in the 21st Century

by Karen Lojeski

LEADING THE VIRTUAL WORKFORCE World markets are unsteady, unemployment is on the rise, housing foreclosures are up, asset values are down, and the political landscape is shifting. Under such tumultuous conditions, people often look to leaders to soothe battered nerves. But in today's rough and tumble environment, there are reportedly few leaders the average person relies upon. Over 80 percent of Americans believe that we are in the midst of a major leadership crisis. And over 75 percent of executives from around the world are seriously concerned about whether businesses can develop good leaders for the future. And yet not one leadership book squarely addresses the issue of the changed workforce, the virtual workforce, and why old leadership models just don't work—until now. Leading the Virtual Workforce builds off the ground-breaking concept of Virtual Distance introduced in Sobel Lojeski's seminal first book, Uniting the Virtual Workforce. And in never-before-published interviews, leaders from IBM, Merck, Western Union, Alcatel-Lucent, HP, AT&T, and more share detailed case studies about what's different about leadership today and how to become a great leader in the Digital Age. Leading the Virtual Workforce The virtual workforce is a relatively new phenomenon. The Virtual Distance Model provides the quantitative data and predictive power needed to understand how new behaviors, born out of the Digital Age, impact performance, innovation, and other critical success factors. And now the time has come to reshape leadership models to best serve worldwide organizations in the twenty-first century. Leading the Virtual Workforce does just that—paving the way for future leaders to create unmatched competitive advantage and performance improvements in the growing world of virtual work.

192 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Johan Hagström · Rating 4 out of 5]

The leadership framework described by the book illustrates where existing leadership models come up short and then proposes new and modified ways of thinking and leading a virtual workforce.

My main take away is the importance of authentic leadership and engaging/including your people in the building of the company "story" and its virtual culture. I also really like the emphasis on us as managers pushing for and taking responsibility for our organizations techno-dexterity and use of modern new ways of communicating (There are no free lunches, even though you might have really easy to use IT Tools).

This is a good read for any manager with people in other locations, independently if that is within your own country or abroad.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really well done. The authors present a very lightweight model for effective leadership in the modern globally distributed organization. I found the case studies and interviews to be very practical and applicable to my career.