Remote Transformational Leadership

In today’s ever changing atmosphere many organizations are faced with the challenge of large and co-located work environments.  Personnel are based in one state or region yet in charge of people in many other states or even in different countries.  Due to this there is the need for much more digital communications.  Telephone, and video conferencing is used on an almost daily basis.  This has caused a vast change in the way a leader communicates with personnel they are in charge of.  With this new change the authors of this paper were looking into whether or not leaders who must use these methods can convey transformational or charismatic leadership traits via these communication methods.  To establish his new idea the authors hypothesized that leaders who faced the challenge of remote leadership could convey charisma and transformational leadership without the face to face contact that most other research and studies have shown is required.  The authors set out to test and see is leaders who communicated remotely with the personnel they lead could be considered charismatic or transformational and that even though they may be thousands of miles away the followers would still follow as they would a leader who was in the same place and had face to face communication with daily.  To conduct this research the authors used a vignette approach of 175 students.  During this they asked questions about either laissez-faire, management by exception, contingent reward or transformational leadership approaches which were communicated through electronic mail (e-mail).  The authors also used a group problem solving task with 105 undergraduate students. This test consisted of the groups reading either an intellectually stimulating or charismatic message via e-mail.  The goal of this was to see if the groups could determine the differences in the messages.   After the first study was accomplished the results showed positive evidence that personnel could differentiate between the different styles of leadership tested based on e-mail communications only.  The results also showed that e-mails which contained transformational leadership messages had a greater association with interpersonal justice and satisfaction as opposed to messages based on a more laissez-faire style leadership.  So for an initial study into this area of leadership and remote located leaders there are some positive and promising results.  As for the second study the results were not as promising.  This study was more about charisma and mode of receiving the message.  The results did not support an effect of charismatic leadership message for individual motivations.  The authors concluded that more research would be needed to determine if the results were based on their questions or the way the message was composed.  They determined that more research and study would be needed to positively say that charisma could be transmitted through electronic means.  There were some positive things which came from the second study however.  The authors concluded that it is possible to manipulate separate components of transformational leadership.  It helped them realize that future studies can now focus on unique outcomes of idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized considerations.   As stated in the beginning more and more personnel are faced with remote communication in the workplace.  I believe this research while in its infancy is quite beneficial to the study of leadership for this very reason.  Everyone is looking for the right balance of leadership and management traits.  These aspects are extremely difficult to balance and get right when you are located in the same area as the rest of your employees.  It is compounded even more when faced with different operating locations.  There has not been much research in this area any study of how to be a more effective and influential leader when dealing with this situation is promising.  There never has or never will be a one size fits all style of leadership due to group dynamics and the changing situations leaders face on a daily basis.  Add to that being a leader who is dealing with separation of the workforce and it is even more difficult.  The fact that in this initial study some of the results showed that leaders could have the same interactions with an individual remotely as they do in face to face interactions is promising.  The results showed that leader-follower distance had a negative effect on performance as well as the perception they have of the leader.  This is very positive research for those companies and organizations who operate in the global market place.   

 

Barling, J., Comtois, J., Gatien, B., Kelley, E., and Kelloway, E. (2002). Remote

Transformational Leadership. Leadership & Organizational Development Journal.  Received

from:    https://erau.instructure.com/courses/35753/assignments/498486