The difference between commanding a dispersed team and collocated

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differences, comparisons, requirements, and limitations, etc.), giving the final labels to the themes. The themes occurrence was then calculated considering one occurrence per participant.

Considering the themes occurrence across the participants opinions and the importance attributed to those themes, it was decided which were most relevant and how they were connected to each other; finally, we wrote up our results.

The quantitative data regarding the importance and the required proficiency level of the competencies were analyzed and presented following the Wolters et al. (2014) approach. The analysis corresponds to descriptive statistics (for instance, frequencies, means, standard deviations) with the support of the sotware SPSS.

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organizing activities require more factors to be considered. Cultural differences should always be considered as a planning factor (GDC staff, Participant 21).

… A dispersed team leader should have all the required competencies, missing

competencies will cause efficiency problems in a short time (Sample-1, Participant 16).

… In dispersed teams it is hard to tolerate the insufficiency of the leaders under the supervision of other levels of the organizations (GDC staff, Participant 25).

… While commanding a collocated unit, leader can eliminate possible management weaknesses by being in critical places, reorganizing the command and demonstrating personal courage, but it is not easy while commanding a dispersed team if the leadership is not strong enough (DAT staff, Participant 15).

3.3.1.2. Differentiating facts of a good⁵ dispersed team leader/commander from a collocated team leader/commander

According to the participants, dispersed and a collocated team commander must have the basic leadership competencies, but qualification level of these competencies will be different.

Differentiating leadership competencies are problem solving, professional knowledge, ability to recognize the strengths in one’s team, risk management, decision making, high sense of responsibility, achievement motivation, influencing staff, self-confidence, decisive, experience, coordination, supervision and feed back. Most frequently expressed competencies that a good dispersed team leader/commander should be more qualified are communication (53%), building trust (27%), initiative (20%) and crisis management (20%). The following statements are the example of participants’ expressions:

…. The required leadership abilities are similar in both groups (dispersed team and a collocated team), but a dispersed team commander is obliged to use more initiative and motivates his/her staff to use initiative... (GDC staff, Participant 19).

… Commanding dispersed teams requires more coordination. Leader makes an endeavor to give directions that will abolish the entropy (GDC staff, Participant 8).

... Some of the expected leadership competencies of a collocated team leader are compulsory for a dispersed team leader (DAT staff, Participant 2).

… Communication, building trust, taking risk, crisis management and creating spirit of unity are the competencies required to be “expert level” to command a DMT (DAT staff, Participant 15).

5 A definition of “good” was not provided; rather, each participant was allowed to define “good” relative to his or her own experiences and interpretation.

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3.3.1.3. Differentiating competencies of a good dispersed team leader/commander from a poor one

Participants reflected their perspectives by listing the differentiating competencies and focused on ten competencies. Most frequently mentioned ten differentiating competencies are in Table 3.2.

Table 3.2. Most frequently mentioned eight differentiating competencies

S/N Competencies of the the team leader Rate Ratio (%)

1 Initiative 33 75

2 Communication 19 43

3 Planning and Organizing 17 39

4 Problem solving 14 32

5 Decisive 11 25

6 Responsibility 10 23

7 Knowledge of doctrine and legal regulations (KDLG) 9 20

8 Motivating and influencing others 9 20

Rate: The number of the participants who pointed that competency.

Ratio: Percentage of the participants who pointed that competency.

3.3.1.4. Differentiating competencies of a good dispersed team member from a poor one Participants reflected their perspectives by listing the differentiating competencies and focused on nine competencies. Most frequently mentioned nine differentiating competencies are in Table 3.3.

Table 3.3. Most frequently mentioned nine differentiating competencies

S/N Competencies Rate Ratio (%)

1 Teamwork 23 52

2 Initiative 21 48

3 KDLG 18 41

4 Communication 18 41

5 Responsibility 16 36

6 Self confidence 12 27

7 Achievement motivation 9 20

8 Problem solving 8 18

9 Engages in self- development activities 8 18

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3.3.1.5. Most important ten competencies for a dispersed team leader/commander to possess

Participants reflected their perspectives by listing the “Most important ten competencies for a dispersed team commander”. Most frequently mentioned most important ten competencies are in Table 3.4.

Table 3.4 Most important ten competencies for a dispersed team commander to possess

S/N Competencies Rate Ratio (%)

1 Initiative 30 68

2 Communication 27 61

3 Decision making 22 50

4 Problem solving 21 47

5 Managing organizational groups 20 45

6 Ensuring shared understanding 20 45

7 Planning and organizing 19 43

8 Responsibility 19 43

9 Crisis management 19 43

10 Motivating and influencing others 19 43

3.3.1.6. Most important 10 competencies for a dispersed team member to possess

Participants reflected their perspectives by listing the “Most important ten competencies for a dispersed team team member. Most frequently mentioned most important ten competencies are in Table 3.5.

Table 3.5. Most important ten competencies of a DMT team member

Rank Order Competencies Rate Ratio (%)

1 Teamwork 34 77

2 Responsibility 33 75

3 Communication 31 70

4 Achievement motivation 30 68

5 Self-control 30 68

6 Adaptibility 26 59

7 Self-confidence 22 50

8 Knowledge of doctrine and legal regulations (KDLG) 21 48

9 Building trust 18 41

10 Self-awareness and self- understanding 16 36

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3.3.1.7. Competencies required for serving in a dispersed team for both commanders and members (Core competencies)

Participants reflected their perspectives by listing the “Core competencies”. Most frequently mentioned ten core competencies are in Table 3.6.

Table 3.6. Most frequently cited ten core competencies

Regarding the differentiating competencies (Table 3.2, Table 3.3), a competency is related to superior performance in a job or situation and actually predicts who does something well or poorly (Spencer and Spencer, 1993), participants agree that initiative, communication, responsibility, KDLG and problem solving are the common differentiating competencies for both dispersed team leader/commander and team member. Reason for the prominence of these competencies is in the nature of organizational environment of PDTs, because, they function under the effects of dispersion, in another saying, they work in different locations or time zones and likely also taking into account a diversity of different disciplinary backgrounds and expertise (Cramton, 2002; Ocker et al., 2011).

More specifically, limited face-to-face interaction, lack of supervision and leadership support require competence in initiative, communication and problem solving in dispersed settings, only a responsible staff is able to build trust which influences the performance of dispersed teams and is very important for better team process (Ocker et al., 2009), and competence in knowledge (KDLG) leads to trust (Zhang, Tremaine, Egan, Milewski, Fjermestad & O'Sullivan, 2007), reduces the costs of controlling and monitoring efforts in dispersed teams (Kanawattanachai & Yoo, 2002).

Focusing on the differences between the differentiating competencies of a dispersed team

Rank Order Competencies Rate Ratio (%)

1 Communication 28 63

2 Teamwork 28 63

3 Initiative 26 59

4 Problem solving 23 52

5 Achievement motivation 22 50

6 Responsibility 21 48

7 Knowledge of doctrine and legal regulations (KDLG) 21 48

8 Building trust 21 58

9 Adaptability 20 45

10 Decision making 19 43

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leader/commander and dispersed team member, while planning and organizing, motivating and influencing others and decisive are the prominence competencies for leaders, achievement motivation, engages in self-development activities and teamwork are prominence competencies for members. Reason for the difference of these two set of competencies lies in the in the nature of the level of the individual. Because, leadership is an influencing process and requires different competencies from membership. Participants stated that while commanding a dispersed team, planning and organizing activities require more factors to be considered, because, dispersion is experienced as challenges of coordination, communication, control, and isolation and effects of dispersion have implications on how leaders form teams and organize work (O’Leary, 2002). Dimensions of dispersion lead to faultlines and make teams especially susceptible to sub-group biases (Gibson & Vermeulen, 2003; Thatcher et al. 2003) which reduce cooperation, threaten cohesiveness, increase conflict, and can have dire consequences on overall group effectiveness (Cramton, 2002), in order to mitigate these negative effects, DMT leader should be competent in motivating and influencing others. It is also stated that decision-making processes of dispersed teams is a real challenge for practitioners (Bourgault et al., 2008).

Regarding the most important competencies (Table 3.4., Table 3.5.), results showed that operational base competencies are prominence for a dispersed team commander/leader and personal base competencies are prominence for a dispersed team member. Specifically, participants focused on six operational base (Decision making, problem solving, managing organizational groups, planning and organizing, initiative, crisis management), three personal base (Responsibility, communication, motivating and influencing others) and one leadership base (Ensuring shared understanding) competencies for a dispersed team commander/leader;

eight personal base (Responsibility, communication, teamwork, achievement motivation, self-control, adaptability, self-confidence, self-awareness and self- understanding), one leadership base (Building trust) and one knowledge base (KDLG) competencies for a dispersed team member. Taken together, these competencies demonstrate the variety of knowledge, skills, and abilities most necessary for dispersed team command and guide the focus of training activities.

3.3.1.8. Evaluation of “Preliminary Competency Model”

Majority of the participants (91 %) agreed that the Preliminary DMT Competency Model, presented in the Appendix-1, reflected the required competencies to be a fully successful dispersed team commander. Table 3.7. shows the evaluations of participants.