Virtual Leadership: A Review Paper <s> Concept of Leadership in Virtual Environment <s> Despite their prevailing growth, little systematic evidence exists regarding the effectiveness of computer-mediated "virtual" teams (VTs), especially in relation to their traditional counterpart, face-to-face teams (FtFTs). A partial least squares (PLS) analysis revealed that FtFTs were more likely to demonstrate higher levels of shared leadership and a constructive interaction style than were VTs. In turn, shared leadership and a constructive interaction style were shown to positively predict cohesion, whereas a defensive interaction style was shown to negatively predict cohesion. Shared leadership was also positively associated with a constructive interaction style and negatively associated with a defensive interaction style. Finally, task performance was shown to be a function of group cohesion. <s> BIB001 </s> Virtual Leadership: A Review Paper <s> Concept of Leadership in Virtual Environment <s> Information technology is providing the infrastructure necessary to support the development of new organizational forms. Virtual teams represent one such organizational form, one that could revolutionize the workplace and provide organizations with unprecedented levels of flexibility and responsiveness. As the technological infrastructure necessary to support virtual teams is now readily available, further research on the range of issues surrounding virtual teams is required if we are to learn how to manage them effectively. While the findings of team research in the traditional environment may provide useful pointers, the idiosyncratic structural and contextual issues surrounding virtual teams call for specific research attention.This article provides a review of previously published work and reports on the findings from early virtual team research in an effort to take stock of the current state of the art. The review is organized around the input - process - output model and categorizes the literature into issues pertaining to inputs, socio-emotional processes, task processes, and outputs. Building on this review we critically evaluate virtual team research and develop research questions that can guide future inquiry in this fertile are of inquiry. <s> BIB002
The one of the major challenge of virtual teams is leadership. It is very difficult for a team leader to control directly every team member's activity due to different geographical location. Consequently, leader considers the delegation principle of management by shifting managerial functions down the hierarchy to the other team members. But the acceptance and fulfillment of these managerial functions depend on motivational level and identification of goals by team members, which is very difficult again to achieve in virtual environment. The virtual leader can't physically observe the members and should be creative to observe the expectations virtually. Virtual team leader can't assume that members are ready to start virtual meetings. Virtual leader must have a sense to understand that an electronic silence means acquiescence rather than inattention. There are three basic roles of a virtual leader. First, a liaison between team's members to interpret events and overall environment. Second, as a direction setter to ensure all actions having specified purpose and those actions are in line with team's overall goals and objectives. Third, leader role should be an operational coordinator for the identification of right resources and development of tactics to solve the problems. Leader must motivate and empower employees to inspire greater efforts for goal achievement and minimize the losses of process. These rules are not much different from traditional rules but must be carried out in virtual team settings with limited communication  . A virtual team is mare a collection of individuals at the time of its creation. The role of leader from the inception is to create coherence and integration among these individuals to achieve the targeted goals. For this purpose, there must be required a team orientation including motivational factors like endorsing a mutual goal setting, creating and shaping positive perceptions. It must present the bond to tie members with each other as well as with team's mission. After the creation of this environment the two major roles of leadership are team development and performance management  . All types of leaders are involved in problem solving of team members. They are trying to articulate the vision of team, communicating that vision and setting plan execution to accomplish the tasks. Leaders are responsible for selecting and motivating right members, establishing right norms, inspiring social events, trust building, goals setting, preparing team to cope with all situations and developing internal communications. Successful leaders of virtual teams are involved in innovative problem solving. Most of the time of virtual leader is spent in mentoring team members, enforcing standards and rewarding team members. It is very difficult to do that all without physical presence. The collocated teams can observe the members physically if team is getting inactive, when team members need a social event to rebuild momentum or when team needs direction or focus and when teams needs resources. It is leader's responsibility to ensure that knowledge of each participating member has been fully utilized. The major reason of unsatisfactory status of virtual working is due to its leadership aspect that has been underestimated and overlooked. In view of some researchers, virtual teams are independent and have lack of a formal leadership BIB001 . In  point of view, only the assigned leader is not sufficient but leadership behavior is required to move forward. The Virtual leadership is intervened using information technology by focusing the performance and relationship of members to enhance the output; it is highly dependent on the information availability and communication permanence  . Moreover, there are some collaborative features of technology that can be substitute for traditional style of leadership  . According to BIB002 Virtual Leadership has several phases. First of all, it must be ensured that there is a right technology efficient for virtual working, in nineties the major focus of literature was on getting right processes and right teams in order to confirm effective virtual working. This scenario of thinking is progressively developed and led to what call "recipe book" about virtual work setting. In last few years the most literature published on the topic of trust and performance management of virtual world. The focus on virtual leadership unlike virtual team management is very limited.