Webinar

Team Building in a Virtual Environment

Everyone plays a role in team building, including supervisors with direct reports, project team leaders, and essential individual contributors. How we each show up impacts the level of collaboration and the success of the group’s work together.

Remote teams can present unique and sometimes hidden challenges in their virtual space, especially without face-to-face opportunities. Optimizing the advantages of online work requires cultivating trust, psychological safety, and interpersonal connections while neutralizing conflict, disengagement, and burnout. If you think you should have this down by now and can’t quite put your finger on what might be missing, you’re not alone.

In this webinar, we:

  • highlighted current trends and needs of today’s virtual teams.
  • explored the different roles and key capabilities of virtual team leaders and team members.
  • identified some ways that emotional and cultural intelligence can build stronger virtual teams.

Webinar presenter Karin Goettsch, PhD, CPTD, designs research-based strategic talent and organizational development solutions for prominent clients across industries and sectors. She consults and coaches on leadership, team building, effective communication, and other core topics.

Presented February 15, 2023.

Webinar Takeaways

“The role of a creative leader is not to have all the ideas; it’s to create a culture where everyone can have ideas and feel that they’re valued.” — Ken Robinson

Strong virtual teams boost credibility, communication, and collaboration.
Paired with emotional intelligence (EQ), cultural intelligence (CQ) can boost virtual teamwork and collaboration.

Emotionally intelligent people:

  • recognize their emotional reactions to people or situations.
  • successfully manage themselves and others in difficult situations.
  • keep cool under pressure and stay positive.
  • express themselves clearly and know how to say the “right” thing to get the right result.
  • gain respect from others.
  • influence and entice others to help.
  • motivate themselves to get things done.

What is cultural intelligence?

CQ is the capability to function and relate effectively to others in culturally diverse situations. Diverse perspectives on high CQ teams will get better outcomes.

CQ predicts:

  • personal adjustment and adaptability
  • judgment and decision making
  • negotiation effectiveness
  • trust, idea sharing, and innovation
  • leadership effectiveness.


CQ components include cultural values and capabilities. Cultural values include:

  • individualism vs. collectivism
  • power distance
  • context
  • focus (monochronic vs. polychronic).

Culture can impact how smoothly we are able to:

  • build trusting relationships
  • empathize with others
  • solve problems and make decisions
  • neutralize the impact of stress on our work together.

Strategies for you and your team

Yourself Your Team
Adapt as needed   Draw on team diversity
Anticipate and adjust interactions Create explicit decision and communication processes
Learn about cultures you interact with Map cultural value differences
Motivate yourself   Align expectations.