Virtual Leadership During the COVID-19 Pandemic (original) (raw)
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Perceived Efficacy of Virtual Leadership in the Crisis of the COVID-19 Pandemic
Changing Societies & Personalities
As a crisis response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies quickly established virtual leadership systems and enabled employees to continue their work from home. This cross-sectional research addresses virtual leadership efficacy assessed by the leaders and by their employees. The findings suggest that leaders evaluate themselves significantly better than their employees, and their leadership efficacy mainly depends on their previous experience of working from home and ability to use communication technologies. This research contributes to the understanding of the factors that have the biggest influence on the belief in leadership efficacy in the context of a rapidly evolving system of remote work.
Changing Societies & Personalities , 2021
As a crisis response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies quickly established virtual leadership systems and enabled employees to continue their work from home. This cross-sectional research addresses virtual leadership efficacy assessed by the leaders and by their employees. The findings suggest that leaders evaluate themselves significantly better than their employees, and their leadership efficacy mainly depends on their previous experience of working from home and ability to use communication technologies. This research contributes to the understanding of the factors that have the biggest influence on the belief in leadership efficacy in the context of a rapidly evolving system of remote work.
E-Leadership: Lessons Learned from Teleworking in the COVID-19 Pandemic
Leadership in a Changing World [Working Title], 2021
During the pandemic crisis, teleworking was compulsory for many workers, without the time and conditions to organize themselves for this transition. Therefore, the leadership needs to respond quickly to changes that occur in times of crisis—such as the current pandemic—adjusting its competencies to prioritize the well-being of employees, define performance goals, follow-up on these goals, provide guidance and support teleworkers, and improve feedback processes. The present study aims to propose an e-leadership theoretical model based on lessons learned from the coronavirus pandemic. To that end, we describe and discuss a survey on the perceptions of support received from managers during the initial 3 months of the pandemic. For this purpose, we collected data with 7608 workers distributed to 95 public service organizations in Brazil. In addition, we also reviewed several empirical studies that assessed the role of leadership in the proper functioning of telework. The support of lead...
Virtual management during the Covid-19 era: Changes in leadership and management
International Entrepreneurship Review
The objective of the article is to understand the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on the management style and the relationship between managers and subordinates. Research Design & Methods: We used a mixed-method combining a qualitative part based on 20 semi-structured interviews as well as a quantitative part based on a questionnaire intended to confirm the observed trends more precisely. All data were analyzed using the grounded theory method. Findings: The analysis of the data shows an irreversible evolution towards a more frequent use of home-office. This situation, welcomed very positively by the leaders, requires however to review the way of operating of the managers as well as the interaction between managers and their subordinates. Implications & Recommendations: We are entering a new phase of management, during which managers will have to create a closer relationship with subordinates, concretely entering the role of manager coach. Contribution & Value Added: This research provides access to the vision that top managers have of the impact of the Covid-19 crisis. Despite many problems, they retain the interest of having accelerated the transition to home-office and remote management while beginning to question the concrete implications of this situation. Article type: research article
Virtual Leadership in Small Businesses during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Challenges and Possibilities
The European Journal of Social & Behavioural Sciences, 2020
The Covid19 pandemic has posed new challenges for leaders in both large and small businesses because of the new health measures that has forced people to work remotely to prevent the spread of the virus. This has led to organizations having to be managed virtually which brings with it its own set of challenges, especially for those who are unfamiliar with technology and used to face to face interaction. This is especially so for small businesses trying to remain afloat through resource constraints and a global economy in distress. Organizational leaders would need to have strategies in place to ensure that the productivity levels of employees remain as status quo or improve if that was possible. This research paper focuses on understanding the now very significant concept of virtual leadership in particular for small businesses by sieving through a focused literature review that covers this area of interest, including those that have suggested operating models that the leaders could...
2021
In the mid of 2020, the COVID-19 disease began rapidly disrupting lives, economies, and workplaces and continues to do so. It was when the disease was brought in a global debacle it forced the world to go into complete lockdown with strict government guidelines of social distancing. The pandemic resulted in the loss of jobs and high rate of unemployment. The COVID-19 plagues forced organizations to make rigorous changes to the workplace leading to complete chaos to employee and employer experience. One of the most drastic changes was "Work from Home". The human resource management department was forced to come up with new strategies to face the challenges of remote working. Scholars including Snell et al. (2002) and Ulrich et al. (2017) have argued the relevance of a strategic HR approach during such challenging times as essential in ensuring institutional competitiveness. Accordingly, institutions turned their attention to virtual employee management (VEM) as an alternative to the traditional system of employment management. According to Henderson et al. (2016), at the time, the adoption of Virtual Employee Management becomes mandatory to facilitate collaboration across isolated employees and stakeholders. Virtual Employee Management is co-dependent groups who work from the comfort of their places with the help of virtual tools or apps like Zoom, Skype and Google meet to communicate work. The major responsibility lies in making productive 'remote teams' a crucial challenge for human resource managers. A survey was conducted on 50 employees and lecturers from esteemed universities by providing them a questionnaire. Remote team leaders' constant hurdles were managing projects, lack of team communication technology issues at home, geographical and cultural barriers. The virtual employee faced core challenges such as overworking after work, maximizing productivity, overcoming distractions and staying motivated. This paper is an empirical paper presenting the problems being faced in virtual employee management by the influence of COVID-19 in general and provides strategies to overcome them to face this epidemic.
Five Steps to Leading Your Team in the Virtual COVID-19 Workplace
Organizational Dynamics, 2021
This is a PDF file of an article that has undergone enhancements after acceptance, such as the addition of a cover page and metadata, and formatting for readability, but it is not yet the definitive version of record. This version will undergo additional copyediting, typesetting and review before it is published in its final form, but we are providing this version to give early visibility of the article. Please note that, during the production process, errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.
Journal of Service Management, 2020
PurposeThe COVID-19 pandemic has, besides the health concerns, caused an unprecedented social and economic crisis that has particularly hit service industries hard. Due to extensive safety measures, many service employees have to work remotely to keep service businesses running. With limited literature on leadership and virtual work in the service context, this paper aims to report on leadership effectiveness regarding employees' work performance in virtual settings brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on the input–process–outcome (IPO) framework, this research investigates the effectiveness of leadership on service employees' work performance mediated by work-related tension, autonomy, and group cohesiveness. Furthermore, this study explores moderating effects of the service provider's digital maturity. To test the derived model, the authors collected survey data from 206 service employees who, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, unexpectedly...
Texila International Journal of Academic Research, 2023
Virtual organisations have progressively pervaded the world where groups of workers implement boundaryless, concurrent, and cooperative job processes outside physical job environments. This is made possible by internet accessibility; and information, communication, and technology (ICT) which organises and integrates employees' abilities and assets for the sole purpose of achieving the overall organisational goal. Virtual jobs offer fresh management problems in comparison to conventional inperson job habits. Human resource specialists reveal that various managers suffered from deficient capabilities and power during COVID-19 lockdown in comparison to conventional working environment management. A meta-evaluative research was conducted in order to conceptualize an evidence-based synopsis on virtual administration of remote-working employees and propose an applicable conceptual framework. The research utilised sixteen peer-reviewed published articles on management of virtual remote-working employees between 2020 and 2023. The results were able to systematically demonstrate remote working procedures of diverse organizations facilitated by virtual processes and technologies, and strategic human resources management model as well as collaborative methodologies that empowered the peculiar COVID-19 virtual workspaces. Communication, information technology and managerial proficiencies are paramount for managers of employees in such settings. Consequently, a conceptual framework for management of remote-working employees have been designed containing managerial expertise, trainings, ICT and environmental components. Managers are required to have the necessary abilities required to anticipate diverse circumstances and to prepare beforehand activities that counter likely contradictions and disputes. Virtual remote-working groups deliver great prospects; thus, managers should aim to capitalise on its benefits while seeking to minimise its drawbacks.