Leadership practices in managing the change to virtual work environments in engineering organisations during a global crisis

Abstract: The Covid-19 global pandemic has challenged traditional models of leadership and change management. In a few months, organisations were forced to transform into working virtually, either partially or wholly. In this context, leadership practices have been crucial to the survival of organisations and their capability to manage that change with minimum interruption and constant productivity. Leadership is a complex social and organisational phenomenon, and this study takes on the novel Leadership-as-practice perspective that understands leadership as an emerging and unfolding process through daily experience and offers an alternative to restrictive traditional competency models. In the era of communications technology, traditional leadership models, remote working, and change management have already been intensively studied. However, little research in the IT management area combines those three topics in the context of a crisis, and leaders were left without clear and researchbased references to guide their efforts during this pandemic. Thus, this study seeks to close that research gap and identify which practices leaders used to strategically and effectively leverage virtual teams to sustain productivity and keep business operational during a global crisis. This study was conducted with a case study research strategy, and data were collected from eleven semistructured interviews with leaders from different levels and organisations across Europe and North America. The chosen data analysis method was grounded theory to ensure findings were grounded in data, along with thematic analysis and constant comparative analysis. Results revealed three categories of practices were central to managing the change to virtual collaboration during the Covid-19 pandemic: Intentional and frequent communications, adaptability, and people-centric focus. Previous research indicates these were not common to other crises, and their absence might have led to destructive leadership behaviours during the pandemic context. These results are coherent with the recent rise of the transformational leadership current and its emphasis on human values in business contexts. From a research perspective, this study fills the gap in extant research and contributes to the growing body of literature using the Leadership-as-practice perspective. From a business perspective, these practices offer leaders a simple framework to guide their change efforts and might imply a need to rethink the manager-team member relationship and responsibilities. Similarly, they might point towards a greater responsibility for organisations to address remote working and secure employee well-being during crises.