A511.5.3.RB_DiazBrian

In the article entitled "Remote Transformational Leadership" the author's goal "is to broaden our understanding of remote transformational leadership, specifically the effects of intellectual stimulation and charisma in remote leadership contexts" (p.167).  Remote leadership is defined as "Leadership interactions that are characterized by electronically-mediated communication between geographically and physically isolated leaders and followers are what we term 'remote' leadership" (p.164).  The authors contend that due to globalization, leaders are faced with the need to communicate with their subordinates by electronic means such as e-mail, video/teleconferencing, and instant messaging.  As a result of relying on technology based communication, the authors were concerned that these interactions may be less than optimal for leaders to effectively manage their subordinates.

In this study the hypothesis was "that individuals exposed to e-mail messages containing a charismatic or intellectually stimulating message would express higher levels of task motivation, and demonstrate higher levels of performance on a laboratory task than individuals who received e-mail instructions that did not contain these aspects of transformational leadership.  Based on previous experimental research on transformational leaders, we hypothesize main effects for both intellectual stimulation and charisma but no additive effect between the two dimensions of transformational leadership." (p.167). 

In my organization (in my capacity), we know what our goals/expectations are for each academic term during the course of the year.  It is something we go over in our end-of-year meeting.  Our director will present to us target goals to be met and from there we are off and running for the year.  During the course of a normal work week I may see my director once or twice in passing.  95% of our communication is done via e-mail or instant messaging.  She sends us reports daily and updates our team accordingly.  We meet face-to-face every two weeks and beside the occasional "drive by" "Hi, how you doing?", we operate mainly by "remote transformational leadership".  Last year we faced some challenges with the government shut down and in an effort to make up enrollments, upper management added additional terms for our students in an attempt to attain our goals.  There was one instance where we were literally working on 3 terms all at once, being asked to do double the amount of normal work, and "challenged" to make up lost registrations (or revenue).  It was around this time that a discernible difference could be interpreted in the e-mails we were receiving.  The transitional leadership we had come to love and expect was soon replaced with management-by-exception.  Gone was the warm and fuzzy and in its place was a very rigid demand for performance.  I can imagine the pressure my director was under for our team to perform so I couldn't be mad at her.  However, as a team this really effected morale because we felt like we were being given all of these additional tasks with no system of reward or recognition.  Feelings were made known and the response was "you have a job to do and it must be done".  These were a tense few weeks.  The demands were great but as a group we conceded that there were only so many hours in a day and we all tried our best.  I wish upper management would have approached us in a face-to-face meeting and heard our concerns regarding this situation.  I believe each side would have benefited greatly from direct communication in this instance.  It got to the point where we were scared to open emails from our director for fear it would be additional tasks!

For this particular study two separate experiments were analyzed.  In the first a vignette approach was utilized.  175 students received an email depicting either laissez-faire, management-by-exception, or transformational leadership.  The goal was to determine whether students could differentiate and identify the different leadership styles.  In the second study, 105 undergraduates completed individual and group problem solving tasks after reading an e-mail containing either an intellectually stimulating or charismatic message.  Identification and motivation of these tasks were then analyzed. 

The result of the first study concluded that "individuals can indeed differentiate between different leadership styles within emails"  (p. 166).  In the second study the results yielded that "Participants who received an e-mail in which the leader expressed intellectual stimulation rated that leader as being more intellectually stimulating than the leader who did not express intellectual stimulation.  As predicted, no differences emerged between these two groups for charisma." (p. 168). 

This study further suggests what previous studies into transformational leadership have indicated.  That transformational leadership (even remote) can influence tasks and attitude related results.  The result of this study suggests that electronic communication can be just as effective as direct face-to-face communication.  I found this study to be quite interesting because of the relevance e-mail and other electronic mediums play into our professional lives today.  Today's leaders have little choice but to use these methods of communication to get their ideas, goals, and directives across to us.  I would agree with the findings of these results that these methods definitely are effective in managing subordinates.

Kelloway, E. K., Barling, J., Kelley, E., Comtois, J., & Gatien, B. (2002). Remote transformational leadership. Leadership and Organization Development Journal , 24 (3), 163-171.