Empowering individuals to integrate work and life: insights for management development

The Impact of Working from Home during COVID-19 on Time Allocation across Competing Demands

(1) Background: We apply the Total Leadership approach to better understand how employees allocate their time across the domains of work, family, community, and self at three points: pre-, during, and post-COVID-19 restrictions. (2) Methods: The study employed a mixed methods design with qualitative and quantitative survey data from 106 Australian employees who worked from home during the pandemic. (3) Findings: Three categories of participants emerged: work-centric, family-centric, and self-centric. The results showed a reduction in time allocated to work during restrictions, an anticipated further reduction post-restriction, and significant increases in the family and self domains. Qualitative analyses confirmed the shift away from work and a divergence between those who preferred the integration of domains verses those who preferred a segmentation approach. (4) Implications: The Total Leadership approach is relevant to this shift in values and priorities away from the work domain, since it encourages employees and employers to take a holistic perspective on their lives. This rethinking could help to reduce burnout and employee turnover—which are particularly salient due to the ‘great resignation’—and could contribute to the sustainability of workforces, as organisations strive to retain and recruit employees who increasingly value work–life balance and wellbeing. (5) Originality: The application of the Total Leadership approach provides a novel theoretical foundation to investigate how employees allocate time across different domains of their post-COVID-19 lives.

E-Leadership and Teleworking in Times of COVID-19 and Beyond: What We Know and Where Do We Go

Suddenly, COVID-19 has changed the world and the way people work. Companies had to accelerate something they knew was imminent in the future, but not immediate and extremely humongous. This situation poses a huge challenge for companies to survive and thrive in this complex business environment and for employees, who must adapt to this new way of working. An effective e-leadership, which promotes companies' adaptability, is needed. This study investigates the existing knowledge on teleworking and e-leadership; and analyzes the supposed challenges. The literature review shows that companies with effective e-leadership can view teleworking as an opportunity. It is advantageous for not only companies' productivity but also the environment and people who work remotely. However, a traditional or no leadership can result in some risks. Thriving in remote work environments implies that managers must adjust the companies' structure, making them less hierarchical, and developing new abilities to establish a strong and trustworthy relationship with their employees to maintain their competitiveness, while retaining a genuine concern for their employees' well-being. Similarly, successful e-leadership must be able to consolidate and lead effective virtual teams to accomplish organizational goals. This study contributes to the literature and leaders during the pandemic.

An Examination of the Boundary Between Work and Home for Knowledge Workers

This article describes how knowledge workers no longer have physical and time boundaries between their work and personal lives. The boundary theory integration-segmentation continuum does not account for variations in both schedule flexibility and work and home boundary permeability. It is possible for an employee to have a flexible but not permeable boundary and vice versa. Furthermore, permeability may vary for the work boundary and home boundary. This article examines the impact of these three boundary characteristics (flexibility, permeability of home boundary and permeability of work boundary) on the work-family conflict of knowledge workers. Additionally, role identity is examined as a potential moderating variable. Practical implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Leadership and organizational ambidexterity

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to answer calls for more research on how leaders may promote organizational ambidexterity (i.e. exploitation and exploration), and how such behaviors relate to transactional and transformational leadership styles.

Design/methodology/approach

– The findings presented in this paper are based on semi-structured interviews with 11 senior leaders in Australian Defence.

Findings

– This paper identifies three organizational mechanisms that leaders rely on to promote exploitation, and five behaviors that leaders rely on to promote exploration. These mechanisms and behaviors closely match transactional and transformational leadership styles, respectively.

Originality/value

– This paper provides support for the leadership ambidexterity construct, and for the thesis that transformational leadership is appropriate in the context of exploratory innovation, while transactional leadership is appropriate in the context of exploitative innovation.