ABSTRACT
Over the past 20-30 years, many public sector organizations have adopted organizational forms that include multi-located organizational units, in which leaders and part of their subordinates work in different geographical locations. The COVID-19 lockdowns have caused a similar trend with an increased use of home offices. Consequently, many leaders today have people working from different geographical locations, and virtual leadership (distant leadership) has become the possible normal practice. The situation before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic can be understood from multiple theoretical perspectives within organizational research: the technological, the performance gap and the institutional perspective. The purpose of this chapter is to present, illustrate and discuss these three organizational perspectives on the adoption of-and changes related to-telework and virtual leadership. The illustrations of these perspectives are conducted to the old normal and the lockdown period, while the discussion is in relation to possible "new normal practices.” The illustrations are drawn from Norwegian public organizations, and the perspectives build on classic and new contributions within organizational research. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023.
ABSTRACT
Although intelligence has been widely examined in the literature, the correlation of emotional intelligence (EI) has with virtual leadership, work stress, work burnout, and job performance in the nursing profession needs further consideration. Prior studies have confirmed that leadership style and emotional intelligence massively contribute to better outcomes in the nursing profession. Based on these confirmations, this research intended to explore the impact of virtual leadership and EI on work stress, work burnout, and job performance among nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic. A convenient sampling technique was adopted to select the data sample. To analyze our hypotheses, 274 self-reported surveys were distributed in five tertiary hospitals in Pakistan through a cross-sectional quantitative research design. The hypotheses were tested with SmartPLS-3.3.9. Our findings revealed that virtual leadership and EI have considerably influenced nurses' work stress, burnout level, and job performance. The study concludes that EI significantly moderates virtual leadership and psychological stress among nurses.
ABSTRACT
The Covid-19 pandemic has forced many institutions to convert to the virtual work model in the blink of an eye, protecting the health of students and employees while maintaining digital productivity. • Many pedagogues in higher education institutions reported that their remote work experience during the pandemic lacked leadership support and training, especially in the areas of information technology competencies. • This issue clearly indicates that leadership and management were unprepared to deal with virtual transformation when the dynamic external influence calls for a virtual change. • This paper uses a narrative review method to explore the historical context of telecommuting and critically review the development of virtual leadership literature in higher education, which finally leads to formation of a comprehensive virtual leadership conceptual framework that could be utilised in future research. © 2022 Ali Khorsandi Taskoh. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this qualitative descriptive multiple case study was to explore Christian organizational leaders' experiences in sustaining membership engagement and leadership sustainability when using advanced technology during the social and organizational disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. Servant leadership theory, virtual leadership theory, and crisis management theory provided the conceptual framework for this study. The research questions addressed how Christian organizational leaders sustained membership engagement and led their church organizations during the disruptive change of COVID-19. A combination of 10 semi-structured interviews, document review, and member checking was used for data collection. The results from the data indicated critical interventions for sustaining membership engagement: fostering and facilitating meaningful interactions virtually, adopting advanced technology based on the receptivity of members, selecting advanced technology based on perceived messaging, and offering hybrid services to mitigate low virtual attendance. The findings also indicated that Christian organizational leaders led by constructing success parameters that were the substratum for decision-making, emphasizing internal operational efficiency and effectiveness, and limiting the number of interventions made during the crisis because of leadership exhaustion. This study provided insight that could help church organizational leaders increase attendance to a multi-generational audience, expand membership engagement through in-person and technology, and be an effective source of tangible comfort and spiritual relief in their community. Which are all measurements for evaluating effective Christian churches. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)
ABSTRACT
The Covid-19 crisis forced many employees to abruptly relocate their workplace from the office to their homes. As working from home is expected to remain part of our working world, consequences for leadership need to be examined. Our study aims to investigate the concrete challenges regarding the feasibility of transformational leadership and health-oriented leadership in this remote setting. Therefore, we collected quantitative and qualitative data of 23 leaders and 18 employees from various organizations in Germany. Both groups were asked to report their experiences during working from home in comparison to the traditional office setting. Findings of our study provide a comprehensive understanding regarding the underlying mechanism that impede transformational and health-oriented leadership in the remote setting. Among them participants reported a lack of social presence, limited informal chats, communication difficulties and lack of mutual trust. Based on our findings we derive practical implications for leaders and HR practitioners.
ABSTRACT
Background: The significant increase of digital collaboration, driven by the current COVID-19 pandemic, is resulting in changes in working conditions and associated changes in the stress-strain perception of employees. Due to the evident leadership influence on employees' health and well-being in traditional work settings, there is a need to investigate leadership in virtual remote work contexts as well. The objective of this scoping review was to assess the extent and type of evidence concerning virtual leadership in relation to employees' mental health, job satisfaction and perceptions of isolation. Method: A search was undertaken in five databases, PubMed, Cochrane Library, PsycINFO, PSYNDEX and Web of Science, as well as reference lists of included articles on 9th February 2021 and an update on 28th September 2021. The search strategy was limited to English, German and French language, peer reviewed journal articles published from January 2000 onwards. This scoping review was conducted in accordance with the JBI methodology for scoping reviews. The methodological quality of the included studies was assessed using the JBI critical appraisal tools. A narrative synthesis was conducted. Results: Nineteen studies met the eligibility criteria for this review. Overarching review findings suggested a positive link between virtual leadership and well-being, job satisfaction, and a negative link to psychological strain, stress and perceptions of isolation of digitally collaborating employees. Conclusions: By mapping the available evidence on virtual leadership in relation to health and work-related employee outcomes, the review identified many research gaps in terms of content and methodology. Due to limited data, causal relationships were not derived. Future research is needed to examine the complex cause-and-effect relationships of virtual leadership in more detail.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic caused the largest education system disruption in history, resulting in many districts abruptly, and often ineptly, implementing remote learning to maintain the continuity of instruction. The majority of educational leaders were unprepared for working and delivering instruction in virtual environments. Research indicates that few educational leadership programs provide preparation for leading in virtual learning environments but the COVID crisis made clear that it is imperative for all school leaders have an understanding of virtual leadership. The purpose of this study was to develop an understanding of the competencies required for virtual school leadership as they relate to the Professional Standards for Educational Leaders(P-SEL). Interviews were conducted with 28 virtual leaders using a semi-structured interview protocol. Results indicated that while the P-SEL Standards were categorically aligned to their work, there were distinctive differences in the ways in which virtual school leaders engaged their work across various leadership domains that required unique competencies. These findings are important to our understanding of how to better prepare educational leaders to maintain the effective continuity of instruction in future emergencies as well as to continue to implement and improve upon promising practices that developed during remote instruction.
ABSTRACT
The world of work is being changed at an unprecedented rate as a result of the rise of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This rate of change was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which left organizations and their leadership to deal with myriad of challenges. These changes also impacted leaders' identities in their work and their roles in their organizations. We examine how leaders responded to the various workplace challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic and what this meant for their work identities as leaders. To do this, we made use of role identity theory, social identity theory, and leader identity. A qualitative study was conducted with a group of eight senior leaders from various South African and global organizations who had between five and 10 years' work experience, and some had even more. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, conducted virtually and in person. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. The main finding that emerged from the research was that leaders employed virtual leadership to ensure that customers' expectations were met, and to manage team-and organizational performance. These leaders achieved this by fostering a digital culture and building effective teams. They achieved their leadership goals by ensuring social identity continuity amongst their teams. This required them taking on extra roles, such as strategist, technology expert, entrepreneur, coach, mentor, and member of the team. Their leader role identity, as part of their work identity, was amplified by the pandemic. The implication is that organizations should develop leadership development programs to increase and strengthen leader identities to capacitate them for times of crisis.
ABSTRACT
The current scenario may present achance to hasten the expansion of leadership capability to build those judgments. In lots of ways, the COVID-19 pandemic has turned into an uninvited worldwide economic experiment. Despite the enormous challenges that businesses are facing, the crisis presents opportunity to squash leadership and spread choice-making for better quickness and resilience. Virtual teams are becoming increasingly prevalent in today's corporate climate. As a consequence, leading a virtual team becomes critical. Virtual team leadership is undeniably more challenging than traditional team leadership (Carte et al., 2006). Becoming a trusted advisor takes more time than working in a conventional team setting. Assigned virtual leaders must also prove their reliability (Al-Ani et al., 2011). A decade of study has helped us better understand successful leadership in virtual teams. How does virtual leadership affect group politics or power play? Does it exhibit an increased level of group power play in organisations where groups are cohesive and well organised? Do people view virtual leadership as a necessity, boon or bane? This research will empirically discuss these issues related to virtual leadership. Also some strategies for effective virtual leadership have been suggested during the course of the research. Finally, it concludes that one essential to effective virtual work in today's difficult environment is captivating a step back and evaluating decision-making structure and allocation.
ABSTRACT
Higher education is facing the need for its leaders to adapt to an ever-increasingly virtual landscape. More than ever before, this became evident during the COVID-19 pandemic, which began in 2020. Previously-utilized leadership strategies proved less than effective tools for managing virtual faculty teams, and new, creative methods of leading people working remotely across wide geographical areas were launched almost overnight. Some worked;some did not. The purpose of this work is to explore the best practices for academic leaders to mentor, motivate, and guide their teams in virtual environments. The themes of creating a culture of trust, team-building and collaboration, and communication emerged in the literature as traits of effective leaders. Here, we apply those traits to personal experiences between March 2020 and May 2021 to propose a model for leadership in a virtual space. © 2021 The Author/s
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to widespread adoption of virtual teams (VTs), the prevalence of which had already been increasing steadily. However, studies show that VTs often fail to meet their potential, highlighting the centrality of trust to their success. While trust is important at the team member level and the focus of much of the extant research, it also underpins effective virtual leadership. Following a review of VT and trust literatures, research conducted within three global technology companies across Europe, Middle East, and Africa is used to provide insights into trust development in virtual leader- member dyads. These highlight leaders' behaviours that can both demonstrate their own trustworthiness to VT members and their trust of VT members. These behaviours are integrated into a framework for enabling high trust VT leadership which emphasises member-centricity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
ABSTRACT
This research empirically evaluates the impact of virtual work environment and communication on remotely located employees. It examines the quality of the relationship between a supervisor and their remotely located subordinate, and a subordinate's perceptions of, and reactions to, their performance appraisal. It was predicted that frequent, and higher quality, virtual communication media (phone and video) would be associated with higher quality relationships, more positive appraisal perceptions and reactions to appraisal when used in virtual relationships. Three separate studies were completed. Studies 1 and 2 were survey based. Study 1 comprised employees who are habitually located remotely from their managers. The results of Study 1 indicate that increased use of media-rich virtual communications, specifically phone and video, were significantly related to positive employee reactions to performance appraisal in virtual workers. Study 2 focused on participants who are typically co-located with their managers, but who were working remotely due to COVID-19 employment restrictions. The results of study 2 supported the findings of study 1. Increased use of media-rich virtual communications were significantly related to more positive employee reactions to performance assessment. In addition, the results of study 2 indicated that increased use of media-rich virtual communications, like phone and video, were significantly related to supervisor-subordinate relationship quality, and positive perceptions of performance assessment. Study 3 involved 30 in-depth interviews with individuals who manage remote workers. The results of the interviews indicate the importance of communication and relationship quality for virtual relationships. Results of all three studies are discussed in terms of practical implications and further research into the leadership of remote workers. Success factors for managing employees remotely are proposed, as well as best practice recommendations for managing the performance of virtual workers. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
ABSTRACT
In the last decade, the effect of digitalization was the most cited issue in economic discourse, especially since technological advances, automation, and artificial intelligence are the key to the future discussions. Unemployment is one of the most important and continuous debates, especially in times of crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the influence of leadership style in innovation organizations to deal with the crisis. In this study, a non-probability purposive sampling method was used. A total of 377 respondents were from LinkedIn social media in Indonesia, with the criteria of employees who have worked for at least 6 years. The structural equation model was analyzed with Amos 25.0. The results show that virtual, servant, and transformational leadership influence employee creativity. Moreover, employee creativity strongly influences organizational innovation;therefore, a new model was found to meet the challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, which is leadership. Therefore, these results are useful for managers to overcome challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis to manage employee creativity for a better innovative organization and make science a reference for finding solutions to the global wave of unemployment in the revolution 5.0 era.