The importance of E-Leadership in meeting digital challenges

As organizations deal with advances in information and communication technologies, efforts to accommodate work-life balance and flex scheduling, they are using virtual work to break down boundaries and connect employees—regardless of geographical location or subunit affiliation. In addition, researchers from a number of academic disciplines are attempting to investigate how these changes are affecting organizations.

In this environment, time and space have different meanings. Under more traditional work arrangements, employees were co-located; today, coworkers may be collaborating or coordinating activities from geographically diverse locations. Because leaders may no longer have the luxury of bringing people together physically as an aid to keeping them focused on the right job, they often have to rely on the emotional connections that result from bringing people together around organizational mission and vision. As a result, behavior becomes more discretionary and cohesion around mission and vision enables all employees to step up to leadership roles—leading both themselves and others.

Today, more and more companies are emptying their cubicles and opting for a virtual workforce. For many organizations the cost-cutting nature of virtual collaboration, which allows companies to save money on office leases or other real estate costs and decreases the need for business travel, is simply too hard to resist at a time when budget cutting is priority one.