Why Shared Leadership Is Becoming the Secret Advantage of High-Performing Virtual Teams

Over the past few years, the world of work has been rewritten. Hybrid work is normal. Fully remote work is no longer remarkable. And for millions of people, “team” now means collaborating across time zones, screens, and digital platforms.

But as organizations try to sustain performance in this environment, one question has become unavoidable:

How do you build strong, effective teams when traditional leadership structures don’t translate well to the virtual world?

A growing body of research points to a compelling answer: shared leadership—a model where leadership responsibilities flow among team members instead of sitting with one single individual.

And nowhere is shared leadership more powerful than in self-managing virtual teams.

The Rise of Self-Managing Virtual Teams

Self-managing teams aren’t new. For decades, companies have experimented with giving teams more autonomy—letting them plan their own work, make decisions, solve problems, and coordinate interdependently.

What is new is the explosion of virtual work and the widespread adoption of digital tools. This shift created the perfect environment for renewed interest in team autonomy.

Virtual teams:

• Rely heavily on technology to coordinate

• Often communicate asynchronously

• Miss the nuance and richness of face-to-face interaction

• Face a higher risk of miscommunication or “behavioral invisibility”

• Require higher trust and clarity to function well

Despite these challenges, virtual self-managing teams can be exceptionally effective. But that effectiveness hinges on how leadership happens inside the team.

And this is where shared leadership becomes essential.

Why Shared Leadership Works—Especially Online

Shared leadership isn’t just a feel-good idea. It consistently predicts stronger performance in virtual settings.

When teams distribute leadership responsibilities, several things happen:

• Members feel more ownership of the work

• Confidence and motivation increase

• Collaboration becomes more natural

• Teams solve problems faster

• Individuals learn and grow through stretch roles

• Overall performance improves—even on hard metrics like output or quality

This model also reflects how real work gets done in virtual environments. Without a manager constantly observing or directing, teams need to rely on each other. Influence flows sideways, not just downward.

One of the more interesting findings from research is that shared leadership follows a life cycle. It tends to:

• Rise early in a team’s lifespan

• Peak around the midpoint

• Fade as the team matures and norms “lock in”

This dynamic shows that shared leadership is less about titles and more about timing. Different members step up when the team needs direction, coordination, monitoring, or relationship building.

Not All Leadership Roles Are the Same

In a self-managing virtual team, leadership isn’t a single behavior—it’s a collection of them.

There are two broad categories:

1. Task-oriented leadership

This is the classic “getting things done” leadership:

• Clarifying goals

• Tracking progress

• Coordinating tasks

• Problem solving

2. Relationship-oriented leadership

This holds the team together:

• Supporting members

• Managing conflicts

• Maintaining morale

• Ensuring psychological safety

High-performing teams share both types among members.

Some team members naturally gravitate to organizing tasks; others take on mentoring or connecting roles. Over time, teams cultivate their own norms—shared mental models about how to work, how to decide, and how to lead.

In virtual environments, these norms are even more important because misunderstanding is easier and feedback is harder.

The better the team aligns on “how we do things here,” the smoother and more distributed the leadership becomes.

But Shared Leadership Doesn’t Just Happen

Organizations like to talk about empowerment, but empowerment only works when conditions support it. Shared leadership requires a set of enablers, including:

1. Clear goals and shared purpose

Without goal alignment, shared leadership collapses into chaos.

With it, leadership becomes intuitive—members step up to move the team closer to the objective.

2. Psychological safety

People won’t take initiative or lead a task if they fear being wrong or judged.

Virtual teams especially need intentional practices that make contribution safe.

3. Strong collaboration tools and norms

Tools like Slack, Teams, Notion, or Asana are only as good as the norms behind them.

Teams need agreements on:

• How decisions are made

• How work is tracked

• How conflict is managed

• How information is shared

• Good tools reinforce good norms.

4. Stakeholder support

A self-managing team is only as legitimate as the organization allows it to be.

If senior leaders override team decisions, shared leadership dies quickly.

5. Coaching and structure for the early stages

New members often struggle with the lack of hierarchy.

Team coaching helps teams:

• Build their shared mental models

• Learn to manage rotating leadership roles

• Internalize norms faster

• Avoid early failure

  
  

Coaching also helps teams sustain improvement—not just achieve it.

Why Shared Leadership Matters Now More Than Ever

Remote work isn’t going away. Automation will accelerate the need for human collaboration that is flexible, adaptive, and creative. Traditional leadership hierarchies were designed for predictable, colocated environments—conditions that no longer define modern work.

Shared leadership fills the gap.

It enables teams to:

• Move faster

• Innovate more naturally

• Stay aligned without micromanagement

• Handle complexity with distributed expertise

• Thrive despite distance

Most importantly, shared leadership builds resilience. When leadership isn’t tied to one person, the team can withstand turnover, disruption, or sudden change.

The Bottom Line

Self-managing virtual teams are no longer an experimental idea—they’re the future of knowledge work.

Shared leadership is the engine that makes them effective.

As organizations continue to navigate remote and hybrid realities, the question is no longer whether shared leadership works—it’s how quickly companies can build the conditions for it to thrive.

The future belongs to teams that lead together.