The effects of remote working on leadership styles and job quality due to Covid-19

Abstract

The Covid-19 global pandemic took the whole world by surprise and has a social and economic devastating effect. Social distancing was one of the measures put in place by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for the prevention of the spread of the coronavirus. Governments across the world were advised by the WHO to encourage employers to allow employees to work from home as one of the measures used to minimize the spread of the virus. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of leadership when leading teams over digital platforms when they were forced to work from home due to the Covid-19 pandemic in South African organisations context. The study explored three leadership qualities that were used as measuring tool to determine the effectiveness of leadership on virtual teams that were enforced due to the Covid-19 pandemic. According to the proposed conceptual model, leadership effectiveness on virtual teams was determined by three main factors, which were Delegation (DELE), e-Communication (COMM) and Technology Savvy (TS). In this model, leadership effectiveness on virtual teams (EL) was hypothesised to be affected by DELE, COMM and TS. The study confirms that there is a relationship between these leadership qualities and the effectiveness of leadership on virtual teams that were enforced as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. These relationships were confirmed by the hypotheses the study focused on