Hauff, Sven

The rapid evolution of remote and hybrid work arrangements has fundamentally reshaped leadership dynamics, presenting novel challenges and opportunities. As "new ways of working" increasingly become the norm, their impact on our professional lives promises to be long-lasting. This study delves into several critical areas centring around good leadership practices in increasingly digitalized and virtual settings: 1) the applicability of transformational and health-oriented leadership styles in remote and hybrid settings; 2) the impact of effective leadership on employee outcomes; 3) the dependency of leadership effectiveness in remote and hybrid environments on specific working conditions; 4) the benefits that leaders derive from employing healthy leadership styles; and lastly, 5) the distinctive challenges leaders face when managing teams remotely versus in traditional office settings. Our findings are drawn from data collected from two samples throughout Germany and across all sectors. Sample 1 consisted 1318 leaders 2180 employees surveyed in April 2021, sample 2 were 907 leaders and 2124 employees surveyed in September 2022. In our discussion, we outline practical implications for leaders and HR professionals, spotlighting strategies for integrating effective leadership practices within remote and hybrid work frameworks. This study not only highlights the evolving nature of leadership in the digital age but also offers insights into fostering a productive and supportive work environment, irrespective of the physical workspace.

The rise of remote collaboration tools is transforming team collaboration. Despite its current limitations, Virtual Reality (VR) technology has the potential to overcome the challenges of traditional video calls and enhance remote meetings in the future. This study compares the effectiveness of VR and video calls (MS Teams) on team collaboration. A total of N = 90 participants were performing a problem-solving task, and N = 127 were conducting a creative task in both conditions (VR and video call). Measures of meeting evaluation, engagement, performance, and fatigue were assessed. The results reveal that video call collaboration is superior to enhancing performance. In comparison, VR offers significant benefits regarding comfort, social interaction, and engagement, particularly with creativity tasks. However, at the current stage of technical development, using VR, regardless of the task, is exhausting and causes fatigue. This research highlights the potential of VR as an effective tool for remote collaboration, emphasizing the importance of selecting the right platform based on the specific needs of the collaborative context.

Health-oriented leadership (HoL) is vital for the improvement of health and an essential part of psychological risk management. However, the relevance of different antecedent factors is unknown. We used data from a Germany-wide online survey with N = 738 leaders. Referring to the JD-R model, we analyzed leaders’ demands and resources that facilitate or impede health-oriented leadership from a leader’s perspective. Moreover, we examined the relevance of contextual factors like branch, company size, and management span. Whereas results show only small differences for contextual factors, we found positive relationships between leaders’ resources, like autonomy and social support, and negative relationships with workplace demands (availability, multitasking) and HoL from a leader’s perspective. At the organizational level, HoL is positively linked to high-performance work practices and health-oriented HRM strategies. From a leader’s perspective, the findings provide evidence for the relevance of favorable working conditions and human resources practices for improving HoL as part of psychological risk management.

This paper sheds further light on the contextual boundaries in the relationship between high-performance work practices (HPWPs) and employee wellbeing. In particular, we analyze whether this relationship is moderated by health-oriented leadership behavior (i.e., staff care) which describes the extent to which leaders value, are aware of, and protect their followers' health at work. Our analyses are based on employee data (N = 1,345) from Germany, covering two points in time. Findings show positive associations between HPWPs and happiness-related (i.e., engagement, commitment) and health-related (i.e., general health, physical health complaints, mental health complaints, strain) wellbeing outcomes. The positive relationship between HPWPs and employee wellbeing is weaker the more employees experience leadership behavior in terms of staff care. Thus, our results provide further evidence for a substitutive or compensatory effect between HRM and leadership.