Abstract:

The past months of global pandemic has shown the importance of virtual leadership, virtual collaboraration and remote working over a long period of time. Not only global companies were affected for which we can assume the change in working was not as big as for Small and Medium Sized Companies (SMEs) and universities. The latter ones are facing now the second generation of students who have never met in person, but are supposed to perform in a totally different setting than generations before them who may have had the chance to experience E-learning or Blended Learning, but have always had the privilege of physical contact among themselves and the teaching staff.

There has always been a motivation to at least enable remote working and virtual leadership before the pandemic for companies: save time and costs for travel to meetings and workshops, raise productivity and improve results (see e.g. Bloom 2014; Lindner 2020). However it is quite a big challenge for virtual leadership to effectively lead teams and keep employees engaged over a long period of time when home-office becomes the only option. Research (Panteli & Duncan 2004; Fjermerstadt 2009; Leiss in press) shows that to be effective as a remote leader needs well developped communication skills displayed through an array of digital communication methods including proactively checking employees‘ current work status, current set of mind, and well-being within the team. Except of that enhanced conflict management skills are necessary as well as developped self-organising skills which are also necessary for employees or students working remotely over a long period of time.

In this contribution it is argued that the challenges in keeping people engaged through remote leadership is quite similar to keeping learners engaged in a university setting and tries to set up criteria for digital tools like the option for breakout groups of different sizes, camera options, private and public chat options, polling and joint collaboration options aswell as Virtual and Augmented Reality setups (see also Caulat 2006). It is argued that not only does the digital toolset used matter for keeping spirits and performance up but also its features may significantly impact working culture and fun at work.

Keywords:

Leadership and Management in Uncertain Times, Keeping Students Engaged, Virtual and Augmented Reality.