Purpose – The paper aims to investigate the forms of power, politics and leadership exercised by project leaders within asynchronous virtual project environments (VPEs). The purpose of this paper is to link effective project leadership to particular forms of power and politics within a VPE.Design/methodology/approach – The empirical data are based on a quantitative telecommunications sector case study, complemented with some interviews, following a semi‐structured approach. The research was approached based from a positivistic philosophical paradigm and using a survey research strategy. The questionnaire‐based survey consisted of a sample of 28 respondents split between project managers (39.3 percent) and team members (60.7 percent).Findings – The research results indicated a significant finding which linked leadership effectiveness to asynchronous VPE usage and communication. Factor analysis of the type of leadership exercised within an asynchronous VPE revealed two forms of effective leadership. The fir...