Identity leadership in the remote workplace: Reflections on the ongoing survey and intervention designs 

Abstract: While leadership is a group process, effective leadership is a group process of social identity management. As a follower-centric perspective of leadership theory, identity leadership has recently emerged as the new force for “ideal” leadership (Haslam et al., 2019; van Knippenberg, 2023) and has been identified as a crucial extension of the implicit model of leadership within and outside organizations (Haslam et al., 2019; Haslam et al., 2022). In this context, we argue that identity leadership offers a possible “panacea” for the future of work—we have lived through a massive shift from working from the office completely to working more and more from home. In this sense, using two vignette studies and a field survey, I first investigate the role of identity leadership in the currently “normal” remote workplace by examining if employees value identity leadership in a remote versus an onsite workplace and how it mitigates the potential burdens of remote work. Moreover, I am currently working on identifying how to apply identity leadership behaviour for managerial practices in an intervention study, which aims to enhance employees’ performance and well-being in remote settings. In this presentation, I will present these two ongoing projects and my reflections on identity leadership research in organizations.