Leadership at a Distance:
Research in Technologically Supported Work

Edited by Suzanne P. Weisband, University of Arizona
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2007

Chapter 1
New Research Challenges for Studying Leadership at a Distance

Suzanne Weisband
Department of MIS
Eller College of Management
University of Arizona

Abstract

Globalization and the spread of advanced information and communication technologies are fueling a transition to distributed work practices. Now, many more people have the information they need to make decisions for themselves. Leadership is no longer the sole responsibility of the CEO or vice presidents; it can be found at every level of an organization. It becomes a special challenge, then, to understand how shifts to distributed forms of work are changing the nature of leadership. When leaders have direct access to information and to the people they collaborate with, it will change the way they interact with others and what they talk about. When leaders come to rely on and use sophisticated computer technologies, there will be a greater reliance on the infrastructure supporting the work and the technology. When collaboration involves hundreds of researchers, engineers, programmers, and software developers, the world of work shifts to a very different perspective on how to lead and work together. This chapter offers a new perspective on leadership at a distance, from the research that considers the role of single leaders with special traits and attributes to a more nuanced role of leadership emergence, technical expertise, and new authority structures in large-scale collaborations. The new challenge for researchers interested in leadership is to keep up with this flatter, global, highly interconnected, world of work. The contributions from this book should convince and inspire you to realize that research on leadership at a distance is thriving and moving in new directions.

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