To violate or doubt the intentions of team members is to invite isolationism, and eventually the balkanization and break up of the group if it goes on too long (Sager, 2008). This is a delicate balance for any manager to keep, as they are expected to get significant results from their team weekly yet if a virtual team member is not producing the approaches to getting greater productivity vary significantly from strategies used within an office. Above all, the need to maintain trust while also being a more supportive, transitional leader vs. An autocratic and demanding one is critically important (Wakefield, Leidner, Garrison, 2008). Only by adopting this type of management style can a virtual team member hope to be successful. The upside of course is that members of virtual teams have remarkable skills for the most part and often put in many more hours than those who work in offices. This is often due to the fact that the overlaying of their roles as husbands or wives, parents and workers frequently overlap in the same home and their job becomes an increasingly larger part of their identity. For virtual team members the relative predictability of their jobs may be a sanctuary from the more chaotic, less ordered worlds of their homes, especially if small children are in the household. Overcoming the poor performance of a virtual team has more to do with providing them with useful guidance on how to remove distractions from their lives and also providing flexibility in getting the work done. Again this...

Apart from managing interruptions the far greater issue is that of overcoming isolation that many workers feel over time if they are not directly involved in activities and key projects (Wakefield, Leidner, Garrison, 2008). The bottom line is that the manager of any virtual team must continually strive to keep their team members involved and focused, and most of all, identifying with the key objectives and programs of the team itself. This is why transformational leadership is so critically important in the management of teams over time.
References

Purvanova, R., & Bono, J. (2009). Transformational leadership in context: Face-to-face and virtual teams. Leadership Quarterly, 20(3), 343.

Sager, K. (2008). An Exploratory Study of the Relationships Between Theory X/Y Assumptions and Superior Communicator Style. Management Communication Quarterly: McQ, 22(2), 288.

Shipley, M., Johnson, M., & Hashemi, S.. (2009). Cognitive Learning Style and its Effects on the Perception of Learning, Satisfaction and Social Interactions in Virtual Teams. Journal of American Academy of Business, Cambridge, 14(2), 17-27.

Siebdrat, F., Hoegl, M., & Ernst, H.. (2009). How to Manage Virtual Teams. MIT Sloan Management Review, 50(4), 63-68.

Wakefield, R., Leidner, D., & Garrison, G.. (2008).…