E-Leadership and Teleworking in Times of COVID-19 and Beyond: What We Know and Where Do We Go

Abstract

Suddenly, COVID-19 has changed the world and the way people work. Companies had to accelerate something they knew was imminent in the future, but not immediate and extremely humongous. This situation poses a huge challenge for companies to survive and thrive in this complex business environment and for employees, who must adapt to this new way of working. An effective e-leadership, which promotes companies’ adaptability, is needed. This study investigates the existing knowledge on teleworking and e-leadership; and analyzes the supposed challenges. The literature review shows that companies with effective e-leadership can view teleworking as an opportunity. It is advantageous for not only companies’ productivity but also the environment and people who work remotely. However, a traditional or no leadership can result in some risks. Thriving in remote work environments implies that managers must adjust the companies’ structure, making them less hierarchical, and developing new abilities to establish a strong and trustworthy relationship with their employees to maintain their competitiveness, while retaining a genuine concern for their employees’ well-being. Similarly, successful e-leadership must be able to consolidate and lead effective virtual teams to accomplish organizational goals. This study contributes to the literature and leaders during the pandemic.

Teleworking as an Eco-Innovation for Sustainable Development: Assessing Collective Perceptions during COVID-19

“…It is interesting to highlight that the most recurrent words are, as regards trust, "team", "management" and "top" and, as regards positive, "productivity", technology" and "learn". In this regard, homeworking during the pandemic, by implying the establishment of strong and trustworthy relationships within the organization, can be perceived as a positive experience by employees [67,68]. In particular, the anticipation highlights the great potential of teleworking: if, on the one hand, it can cause anxiety, because it is an innovative work organization in many companies, on the other hand, it offers a new way of working, implying more autonomy, flexibility and better adaptation to the individual circumstances and preferences.…”

Adaptive Managers as Emerging Leaders During the COVID-19 Crisis

“…In other words, adaptive managers are more likely to have increased levels of individual resources and, as a result, resilience as they tend to have faced and adapted to challenging situations throughout their life, rendering them more able to adapt to such situations in the future, and thus, demonstrate it through adaptive performance. Lastly, future research can investigate the influence of the COVID-19 crisis as a moderator of the investigated relationships in this study, and how such a crisis might have a different, unique impact compared to other types/forms of crises (e.g., due to lockdown or isolation) on outcomes such as utilization of online resources and/or teleworking (Belzunegui-Eraso and Erro-Garcés, 2020;Contreras et al, 2020).…”

Telecommuting, Off-Time Work, and Intrusive Leadership in Workers’ Well-Being

“…The style of leadership is also of the utmost importance in guiding the organizational evolution from traditional to flexible work and can influence the final health outcomes. As reported by Contreras et al [ 16 ] some leaders and supervisors may tend to adopt an ”intrusive” leadership style, namely, the exploitation of employees with work and information overload that overlap with domestic and work settings, resulting in an intrusion into employees’ personal life that, in turn, can yield negative mental health outcomes.…”