E-leadership Transformations in Leadership Source and Transmission

E-leadership: Re-examining transformations in leadership
source and transmission
Bruce J. Avolio a,
⁎, John J. Sosik b
, Surinder S. Kahai c
, Bradford Baker d
a
University of Washington, USA
b
The Pennsylvania State University, USA
c
Binghamton University, USA
d
University of Maryland, USA
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received 1 August 2013
Received in revised form 18 October 2013
Accepted 31 October 2013
Available online 25 November 2013
Editor: Francis J. Yammarino
At the turn of the century, the first integrative review and conceptualization of the work on
e-leadership was published in The Leadership Quarterly. During the late 1990's, with the rapid
rise in advanced information technology (AIT) such as the Internet, e-mail, video conferencing,
virtual teams, and groupware systems (GDSS), there were a number of authors beginning to
examine how AIT would transform how organizations organize their work and the implications
for leadership in those organizations. Much of this discussion fell under the broad label of “virtual”
with authors at that time speculating how such technology might impact how leadership was
practiced and investigated. Now, over a decade later, we re-examine how the theory, research,
and practice domains have evolved with respect to the work on e-leadership and its implications
for the way leadership functions. In this review, we have broadened the notion of what
constitutes e-leadership, considering how AIT affects the leadership dynamic, how the leadership
dynamic affects the faithful or unfaithful appropriation of AIT, how AIT can and is being used to
develop leadership, and ultimately how each will shape how organizations function well into the
future. In sum, we examine what we've learned about e-leadership, what needs to be learned, and
what might constitute emerging topics that could drive the e-leadership agenda over the next
decade and beyond.
© 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
E-leadership
Advanced information technology
Virtual team leadership
Gaming
1. Introduction
Thomas Edison suggested at the turn of the 20th century that human beings have an enormous capacity to build amazing
technology but figuring how to best implement it, remains a formidable challenge (see www.edisonfordwinterestates.org). This
certainly appears to be true of the advanced information technology (AIT) that has been developed since the mid-1990s and
deployed in organizations because there have been amazing transformations in what technology can now do for and to us. Yet,
how such technology is implemented in organizations and its effects on the way people work together has not been fully
examined nor understood. Although the potential impact of AIT has been recognized by both leadership scholars and practitioners
as important, what we know about the interaction between AIT and leadership still remains at the very nascent stages of
development.
The position we take in this updated review regarding the examination of e-leadership is broader than simply focusing on how
leaders use AIT when interacting virtually. Specifically, we attempt to “zoom out” in our examination of leadership and AIT, by
considering how AIT and leadership – in the broadest sense – affect each other over time, distance, and cultures. We do so,
because, information is a fundamental building block for considering how organizations function. Consequently, to the extent that
The Leadership Quarterly 25 (2014) 105–131
⁎ Corresponding author at: Mark Pigott Chair in Business Strategic Leadership, Foster School of Business at the University of Washington.
E-mail address: bavolio@u.washington.edu (B.J. Avolio).
1048-9843/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2013.11.003
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
The Leadership Quarterly
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/leaqua

information generation and distribution in organizations is changing as a function of advances in information technology, we
suggest that what actually constitutes an organization is also transforming, which then centrally affects how we view leadership
in current and future organizations.
We argue that e-leaders are affected by time, distance, and cultural considerations in how they actively shape their
followers', customers' and society's views and use of AIT, and potentially the context that embeds them. Work on strategic
leadership suggests that there are windows of opportunities defined by market, economic, societal, and political factors that
place limits on when technologies can be developed and/or adopted (Finkelstein, Hambrick, & Cannella, 2007), and therefore
when leaders are required to communicate these factors to followers or customers. For example, the determination of when and
how to best apply technologies to develop and introduce an innovative computer for the higher-education market was essential
to the success of NeXT, the company Steve Jobs founded after leaving Apple in 1985. To overcome market-defined time
limitations in the fast-paced computer industry, Jobs recognized the importance of eliminating social and physical distance
among his top managers and designers. To close the time/space gaps and create a more participative context, he used a mix of
intensive company retreats and technology. This approach facilitated discussions among employees about NeXT's vision and
culture and how customers could use the new technology his employees were creating (Nathan, 1986). Thus, e-leadership not
only considers how AIT mediates leadership influence processes, but also describes how leadership influences the creation,
adaption, or adoption of AIT by all constituents within what we call the total leadership system (described below), and how
technology may aid leaders to better reveal, frame, and communicate truths hidden within the ambiguities of complex social
systems and their contexts (Heidegger, 1977).
In their review of e-leadership, Avolio, Kahai, and Dodge (2001) indicated, “we chose the term e-leadership to incorporate the
new emerging context for examining leadership” (p. 617). The authors went further in their discussion to emphasize that they
would focus on how AIT was mediating social influence processes that are typically associated with leadership at individual,
group, and organization levels. However, in their abstract, they also stated, “organizational structures, including leadership, may
themselves be transformed as a result of interactions with Advanced Information Technology” (p. 615) and further into their
review, they suggested that “leaders will need to play a more proactive role in creating the social structures that foster the
implementation of AIT” (p. 617).
Reflecting on their main focus, we assume that Avolio et al. (2001) used adaptive structuration theory specifically because
they were interested in not only how leaders appropriate technology, but also how technology impacts leadership. Consequently,
we set out here to examine how leaders lead virtually, as well as how teams interact virtually, but this in our view is only a very
small piece of the transformation that is occurring in organizations as a consequence of introducing AIT. Yet, we cannot focus on
every aspect of organizations or organizational theory in this updated review, so we direct our attention specifically to examining
how AIT and leadership interact with each other to affect individuals, groups, organizations, and larger communities.
Looking back and building on Avolio et al. (2001), our focus here is to examine the changing complex leadership dynamic that
is affected by the introduction of new forms of AIT. Dasgupta (2011) perhaps articulated this broader focus best stating,
“leadership and technology, therefore enjoy a recursive relationship, each affecting and at the same time being affected by the
other; each transforming and being transformed by the other” (p. 2). Similarly, Avolio and Kahai (2003) in their discussion of how
technology is affecting leadership, viewed e-leadership as being “a fundamental change in the way leaders and followers related
to each other within organizations and between organizations”(p. 15).
With this focus in mind, we examine how the interaction between leadership and AIT will permanently change what we
conceive of as representing an organization in which future practitioners lead and future leadership scholars study leadership, as
noted by Avolio et al. (2001),when they stated, “the repeated appropriation of information technology generates or transforms
social structures, which over time become institutionalized” (p. 621). Fundamentally, we build on the foundational question
guiding earlier work on e-leadership to ask, how does the appropriation of AIT affect the total leadership system in organizations and
in turn, how does leadership affect the appropriation of AIT in the sense of their co-evolution? We assess whether leadership is the
source of organizational structures/processes and how leadership affects and is affected by the structures arising from the
appropriation of the AIT. Referring to Katz and Kahn's (1978) notion that organizations are interconnected systems whereby a
change in one aspect of the system will affect changes in other parts, we emphasize from the outset of this article that we are
considering both social and technical systems, as well as their interaction over time.
Our review of the literature indicates that advances in AIT and its appropriation at all levels of organizations and societies have
far outpaced the practice and science of leadership. Indeed, it seems fair to say that the field of leadership has largely assumed
what we might call an anthropological approach to understanding how AIT affects the leadership dynamics in organizations,
communities, and societies. By anthropological, we mean the leadership field has studied the traces left behind after AIT has been
appropriated, following what the impact has been, versus predicting what it could be. This includes but is not limited to how AIT
has dis-intermediated the relationship between leaders and leaders, leaders and followers, leaders and their organization,
community and nation states, global and non-global team members, governments and the citizens they serve, and the business
enterprise and its customers.
We begin our discussion by first highlighting critical aspects of the original discussion on e-leadership in terms of some of the
fundamental operational definitions and theoretical frameworks used to interpret what constituted e-leadership at that time.
Next, we examine how e-leadership has evolved in both science and practice over the past ten plus years, exploring it from a
micro to macro perspective. We then examine emerging areas that were not included in the 2001 review (e.g., gamification,
explained below) that are changing the way organizational members and consumers interact around the globe. After these
discussions, we provide a review and integration of the existing literature, in Table 1, and propose a framework to guide future
106 B.J. Avolio et al. / The Leadership Quarterly 25 (2014) 105–131

work on e-leadership, in Fig. 1. Finally, we conclude with recommendations for exploring over the next decade what constitutes
e-leadership in all of its many forms and functions.
2. Reﬂecting back to prescribe forward
Avolio et al. (2001) led their discussion of e-leadership by stating that, “We believe it is perhaps too early to identify any
empirically based, systematic, patterned variations or to draw any broad conclusions about e-leadership” (p. 616). Since that
statement was first published, our updated review suggests that although there are certain broad conclusions one can derive from
the leadership literature, such as how different leadership styles interact with different AIT systems to produce different patterns
of interaction and performance, providing more specific recommendations and conclusions still remains elusive. However, we are
confident in saying that AIT affects the leadership dynamic, sometimes augmenting it, and sometimes substituting or subtracting
from it, but if pushed to offer a specific set of axioms or practical guidelines for exploring this leadership domain, at present such
specificity does not seem justified.
Certain points made in the 2001 article did offer appropriate guidance for future work on e-leadership and remain relevant
today, including for example, the statement, “In the case of e-leadership, the context not only matters, it is a part of the construct
being studied” (p. 616). Avolio (2007) made a clear call for the field of leadership to focus its energies on understanding the
context in which leadership was not only embedded, but in the case of e-leadership part and parcel. A call for more theory and
research on the context in which leadership is embedded coincided with many other calls in the field of leadership to do the same
(Bass, 2008).
As stated in Avolio et al. (2001), “E-leadership is defined as a social influence process mediated by AIT to produce a change in
attitudes, feelings, thinking, behavior, and performance with individuals, groups, and/or organizations” (p. 617). Yet, the original
definition of e-leadership may have also benefited from placing greater emphasis on the importance of the context in the original
definition (cf. Avolio, 2007; Bass, 2008), which might be revised as follows: E-leadership is defined as a social influence process
embedded in both proximal and distal contexts mediated by AIT that can produce a change in attitudes, feelings, thinking, behavior, and
performance. Also in retrospect, there could have been greater emphasis placed on what constitutes the source or locus of
e-leadership, and how the source of leadership is transmitted when it is mediated through AIT, as we discuss below.
In terms of specific theoretical considerations that were provided in 2001, the suggestion that leadership and technology
influence each other reciprocally, as emphasized by Weick (1990) and Orlikowski, Yates, Okamura, and Fujimoto (1995), is clearly
in line with emerging leadership theory and research that has appeared over the last decade, such as work on authentic
leadership theory (see Avolio & Gardner, 2005). Adaptive Structure Theory (AST; DeSanctis & Poole, 1994), which was the
foundational theoretical framework used by Avolio et al. (2001) to examine e-leadership, remains useful in determining how the
appropriation of AIT by leaders and their peers or followers can affect how those leaders lead through technology, and how
leadership itself affects the use of technology.
Looking back, AST views technology in terms of what it called its structural features and spirit. Specifically, information
technology is not simply used, but rather appropriated in ways that is based on how the technology is interpreted by the user.
Hence, users may appropriate technology in ways that were not intended by the designer or spirit, that is to say, unfaithfully.
Avolio et al. (2001) stated that the, “appropriation of structures and its outcomes can reaffirm existing structures, modify them, or
give rise to new structures” (p. 615). Also, Avolio et al. suggested that leadership should be viewed as a system that can serve as
the source of structures that can faithfully or unfaithfully guide actions in line with the spirit of both leadership and AIT. For
example, we have recently seen the rapid growth of crowd sourcing in all aspects of business and community challenges, which in
spirit promotes collective or shared leadership on a very broad and dynamic scale. Creating such a collective leadership system
that can encompass thousands of individuals influencing each other towards a specific goal or mission, along with the AIT to
support that leadership, is exactly what DeSanctis and Poole (1994) meant when they referred to the faithful appropriation of
technology.
The appropriation concept in AST is an area that the field of leadership has only begun to scratch the surface of in terms of
examining how AIT is appropriated within and between different levels of analysis. The leadership field's collective understanding
of what has been appropriated, and how, seems primarily post hoc. However, how a leadership system operates impacts how
technology is appropriated. Leaders can affect appropriation by manipulating institutional structures of signification, legitimization,
and domination (Chatterjee, Grewal, & Sambamurthy, 2002). These structures create norms and values regarding how organizational
members should engage in structuring actions. Leaders can manipulate structures of signification, which give meaning and serve as
cognitive guides, through inspirationally motivating behaviors that offer a vision for the organization and how AIT fits into that vision.
Leaders can influence the structures of legitimization, which legitimize behavior, by discussing opportunities and risks with the
application of AIT. By believing in AIT, participating in AIT strategy and projects, and using AIT, leaders can be role models and send
signals that legitimize their followers' participation in AIT projects and adoption of AIT. Leaders can manipulate structures of
domination, which regulate behavior, through mandates and policies regarding AIT adoption and use.
However, technology may not always be appropriated in accord with the structures enabled or created by a leader. Indeed,
when authoritarian leadership conflicts with an emergent and complex leadership dynamic, as in what has been referred to as the
“Arab Spring,” the appropriation of technology such as Twitter and Facebook to launch protests has radically changed who was
and who was not in control. Of course, these technologies can also be used to create havoc and chaos among large groups, which
presents the possibility for misusing AIT to serve the purposes of radical groups/leaders interested in destabilizing populations.
107B.J. Avolio et al. / The Leadership Quarterly 25 (2014) 105–131

Nevertheless, we suspect that the founders of both Twitter and Facebook may not have built into the spirit of their respective
AIT Nevertheless, we suspect that the founders of both Twitter and Facebook may not have built into the spirit of their respective AIT
systems the idea of regime change, however that is how those technologies were appropriated. We also are witnessing the same
type of transformation happening in many aspects of business, where AIT is changing not only the way customers interact with
organizations and what is offered and delivered, but also how organizations configure their leadership and operational systems to add
value for their customers. AIT has empowered customers through websites, blogs, and other means of connecting, to provide
transparent and oftentimes nearly instant feedback on products on services. At the same time, AIT is now being used to track customer
purchasing patterns and preferences, and then aligning ads and offerings that could no doubt manipulate consumers and violate a
range of privacy issues.
The importance of relationships in terms of AIT was certainly noted even in the early work that was done connecting groupware
systems and leadership (Sosik, Avolio, & Kahai, 1997). Specifically, this line of research examined different styles of leadership and
how individuals interacted within a groupware system setting, showing how different leadership styles manipulated experimentally
(either in facilitation or in groups) affected how groups interacted and their outcomes. In these experiments, anonymity was
consistently shown to be a powerful moderator when examined in the context of leader and followers e-collaborations. Today, this
finding may not seem so surprising in that when we provide consumers with the protection of anonymity, we see how this construct
has transformed the way products and services are graded (e.g., Amazon.com, Trip Advisor, Angie's List), and how leaders of Fortune
500 companies are judged (e.g., Glassdoor.com). What was shown in early research regarding the effects of anonymity on the
interactions within group support systems (see, Sosik et al., 1997, where anonymity enhanced the effects of transformational over
transactional leadership on solution originality, group efficacy, and satisfaction with the task) has largely been shown in online
interactions around the globe.
In sum, looking back to 2001, we remain confident the theoretical framework that guided the foundational work on e-leadership
remains sound and still generative as a foundation for future research. The inclination that leadership and AIT systems co-evolve,
perhaps not always in the most constructive or even beneficial ways, still makes sense. Also, that context matters even in how we
define e-leadership, is more apparent today than it might have been in 2001. Yet, we also see that the practice field has far outpaced
what we know about how leadership and AIT will affect each other. This is also true in the recommendations and training that
organizations have provided to leaders and teams on how best to appropriate AIT whether in one to one, one to many, many to many,
or virtual team settings.
We proceed by examining what happened over the last decade and how what has transpired might shape the next decade or
two in terms of leadership research, theory, and practice. Yet, we remain grounded in our focus guided by a question that was
posed in the future directions section in Avolio et al. (2001) where the authors stated, “How does the organizational context,
including the specification of levels of analysis, affect how we conceptualize, define, and measure e-leadership?” (p. 658).
3. Leadership as source and transmission
To frame our analysis of AIT and how it interacts with leadership, we draw from the framework provided by Hernandez,
Eberly, Avolio, and Johnson (2011), and an extension of that framework by Eberly, Johnson, Hernandez, and Avolio (2013).
Hernandez et al. (2011) suggested that all leadership theories focus on two fundamental aspects of leadership: the locus or source
of leadership, and mechanisms or how leadership is transmitted. For example, in traditional theories of leadership, the source of
leadership is defined as the leader, and how it is transmitted and measured is based on the styles or behaviors of that leader.
Hernandez et al. (2011) identified five loci of leadership (leader, follower, leader–follower dyad, collective, and context) and four
mechanisms of leadership (traits, behaviors, cognition, and affect). As implied with the use of the term loci, leadership was also
examined as a multi-level process and with respect to the current article, included the context in the loci of leadership.
In a subsequent article, Eberly et al. (2013) set out to examine not only the loci and mechanisms of leadership, but also more
importantly their complex interplay unfolding over time and across levels of analysis. They added to the loci and mechanisms of
leadership what Morgeson and Hofmann (1999) called event cycles. In doing so, these authors offered a more dynamic mode for
examining all aspects of leadership, including those that constitute e-leadership. Specifically, Morgeson and Hofmann (1999)
depicted the event cycle as being, “the basic building block upon which all larger collective structures are composed” (p. 252).
They described how one event cycle might lead into another, where a number of simultaneous event cycles include multiple loci
of leadership. We view the use of these event cycles as a supporting framework for examining the dynamic set of interplays for
leadership that unfold at dyadic, group, group to group, and even organizational levels that are mediated by AIT.
As with any form of leadership, we ask, what are the loci and transmission mechanisms of e-leadership? In addition, what does an
event cycle or series of cycles look like for this form of leadership versus more traditional face-to-face (FtF) interactions? For instance,
an inspiring leader with high positivity may transmit positivity via electronic community forums or blogs, which is then received and
interpreted by thousands of individuals, who then transmit the effects through verbal, non-verbal, or behavioral actions either in FtF,
one-to-one interactions, groups, or through other AIT. The original source of positivity may then spread, or “go viral” in some cases,
while in others be mitigated depending on whether constituents believe in the leader's authenticity and message.
Our view of e-leadership, its locus and transmission corresponds to the discussion by Galvin, Balkundi, and Waldman (2010)
regarding how surrogates of charismatic leaders transmit or inhibit the cascading of messages. Similarly, the process of cascading
leadership transmissions has been taken up recently by Hannah et al. (2013) in their examination of how abusive leadership
cascades across levels, as well as in the work by Schaubroeck et al. (2012), who examined the cascading effects of ethical
leadership through mechanisms such as culture, but without any explicit focus on AIT. An interesting question one might then ask

about e-leadership is: how does AIT influence a collective's shared understanding and then how does that understanding get
transmitted to reinforce experiences or actions that are in line with the desired culture of an organization? This question supports
Yammarino's (1994) suggestion that the transmissions of leadership may be direct within levels in terms of horizontal
transmission or indirect across levels, through what he referred to as “bypasses,” that might be facilitated by AIT. What he meant
by bypass is that one leader's message may be transmitted through the culture versus the next leader down below the target
leader, thus affecting groups of leaders and followers at subsequent levels indirectly. How this complex leadership dynamic
involving both leaders, followers, and culture as loci mediated through AIT gets transmitted and distributed throughout an
organization has not been examined in prior leadership literature except for a few instances through cross-sectional research that
has focused on the cascading effects or “falling dominoes” of leadership (e.g., Bass, Waldman, Avolio, & Bebb, 1987; Chun,
Yammarino, Dionne, Sosik, & Moon, 2009), or by focusing on the influence of leadership in social networks (e.g., Mayer, Kuenzi,
Greenbaum, Bardes, & Salvador, 2009).
In sum, building on the Eberly et al. (2013) proposed framework, we examine both intra- and interpersonal aspects regarding the
mechanisms of leadership and how those are affected through the introduction of AIT. Eberly et al. (2013) suggested that
interpersonal mechanisms such as behaviors help communicate the intrapersonal loci including traits, cognitions, and emotions. As
cited in Eberly et al. (2013), we also are informed by DeRue and Ashford's (2010) view of leadership, who referred to it as, “a broader,
mutual influence process that is independent of any formal role or hierarchical structure and diffused among the members of any
given social system” (p. 429). Finally, we use as was recommended by Eberly et al. (2013) the definition of context provided by
Mowday and Sutton (1993), namely, “stimuli and phenomena that surround and thus exist in the environment external to the
individual, most often at a different level of analysis” (p. 198).
4. Micro-level locus of e-leadership
E-leadership can originate from individuals assuming the role of leader and/or follower, leader-follower dyads, with members
operating in a virtual group, or within the context these entities are embedded. Each of these loci provides unique yet
interdependent sources of influence offering implications for e-leadership theory, research, and practice.
4.1. Leader as loci
Prior theoretical work on e-leadership based on AST suggested that leaders play an important role in influencing followers'
appropriation of AIT structural features and their interpretation of technology's spirit. For example, a leader who is perceived by
virtual group members performing a collaborative task as displaying transformational leadership behaviors can enhance group
potency beliefs, which promote more creative group outcomes in turn (Sosik et al., 1997). Prior work on e-leadership, reviewed
by Kahai (2013), suggests that we need to examine leader cognitions, emotions, and behavior in virtual contexts by considering
alternate styles beyond transactional–transformational and directive–participative leadership dichotomies to more fully account
for the potential of AIT to generate both positive and negative e-leadership outcomes. This call was based in part on emerging
research findings that showed how leaders interacting with followers in virtual worlds and chat rooms varied in effectiveness
depending on how leaders facilitated those interactions (i.e., encouraging contributions, coordinating activities) versus directive
and monitoring behaviors (e.g., Montoya, Massey, & Lockwood, 2011). We suggest that researchers should also extend this work
by exploring how ethical (Brown & Treviño, 2006) and character-based (Sosik & Cameron, 2010) models of leadership explain
how leaders guide the appropriation of AIT features and interactions within virtual teams, social networks, and other online
forums; this is especially important given the rise of virtual interactions (Stokols, Mishra, Gould-Runnerstrom, & Hipp, 2009),
concerns about online deception (Toma & Hancock, 2012), problematic online social interactions, harmful online communities,
and misrepresentations of self/others found in virtual settings (DeAndrea, Tom Tong, & Walther, 2011). Similarly, focusing on
how unethical or abusive leadership interacts with AIT features provides a useful avenue for future research (Schaubroeck et al.,
2012).
4.2. Followers as loci
The evolution of the Internet and mobile technologies has allowed for rapid mobilization of followers as potent
e-leadership forces. Followers who are connected through technologies such as Facebook or Twitter can create or respond
to social, political, economic, and natural events as seen in the active role played by followers in the “Arab Spring”
uprisings, and responding to the aftermath of earthquakes in Haiti and China. Followers from the tech-savvy “Millennial”
generation have a propensity for digital media, multi-tasking, and collaboration. They believe that power comes from
sharing information and that leaders should serve rather than direct (Hammel, 2009), which should foster greater
follower impact on the leadership dynamic via AIT. These trends, especially the growing propensity for sharing
information, are likely to increase the frequency at which we observe shared, distributed, or collective forms of leadership
in organizations (Stokols et al., 2009).
Followers also play an essential role in determining how virtual interactions unfold by contributing their unique personal
attributes, knowledge, skills, abilities, cognitive styles, mental models, and surface- and deep-level attributes through shared
leadership processes (Hoch & Kozlowski, 2012). Avolio et al. (2001) suggested that follower attributes influence the social
interaction process within groups and how groups then chose to appropriate features of an AIT system. For instance, followers

who perceive Internet use as an opportunity to expand their professional network are more likely to use Internet tools and
features of social network websites than followers with less opportunistic perceptions (Furutani, Kobayashi, & Ura, 2007).
Follower virtual interactions can facilitate the spread of socially contagious positive attitudes not only toward the further use of
AIT, but also follower feelings of self-efficacy (Furutani et al., 2007) and positive emotion (Sisask, Mark, & Värnik, 2012) that can
be shared with other followers, peers, and subsequent leaders. The potential for the spread of negative attitudes and emotion
among leaders and followers through computer-mediated communication (CMC) in virtual teams, social media networks, and
online dating forums also exists given discussions of dysfunctional and pathological use of the Internet (e.g., Davis, 2001;
DeAndrea et al., 2011).
Mobile technology opens up opportunities for followers to influence the leader and others via back-channel communication,
or communication that is secondary to, but occurring at the same time as the main communication. The relevance of back-channel
communication for leadership became apparent when a Florida senator attending a committee meeting with insurance regulators
received questions on his Blackberry from a lobbyist in the audience that he posed to ask the regulators (Gomes, 2010). This
example indicates that when mobile technology is used for back-channel communication, it shifts at least part of the locus of
leadership to the follower and, as discussed later, the group or collective. Such application of mobile technology also changes
leadership mechanisms in that by using back-channel technologies within a group, leaders could improve the level of
engagement of its members, as well as potentially the commitment and ownership in the solutions proposed. Followers can use
back-channel communication to intellectually stimulate both the leader and each other in real time, as multiple members can
challenge, discuss, and elaborate on the points being presented. Of course both could also use such back channel technology to
manipulate opinions with false information or data.
Within organizations, mobile Internet technologies and massive online group events, such as IBM's Service Jam, offer followers
opportunities to shape the work environment where e-leadership emerges. As such, we suggest that future research test models
of followership (Carsten, Uhl-Bein, West, Patera, & McGregor, 2010), empowerment (Spreitzer, 1995), and shared leadership
(Pearce & Conger, 2003) using linguistic analysis of online communication (Smith-Slater & Anderson, 1994), and social network
analysis (Pinheiro, 2011), which may begin to unpack how leaders and followers mutually influence the processes and outcomes
of e-leadership.
4.2.1. Dyads
One element of e-leadership concerns the styles of interactions between leaders and followers, who communicate and interact
through AIT in dyads embedded within groups (Avolio et al., 2001). AIT, such as social media or online communities, can greatly
reduce the perceived remoteness experienced by physically-distanced parties (Cairncross, 1997), and therefore could positively
influence the quality of dyadic relationships (Weisband, 2008). Yet, how does this bonding process emerge, develop, and sustain
itself for leaders and followers interacting through AIT? What is the quality of their on-line relationships compared to FtF
relationships? How could users of such technology take advantage of building swift trust for malevolent purposes? These
questions remain open in terms of what has been examined in the leadership research literature.
Leader–member exchange (LMX) literature (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995) provides some initial answers to these questions by
explaining how these experiences may emerge, because of its emphasis on the quality of dyadic interactions. High-quality LMX
relationships are characterized by mutual trust, respect, liking, and reciprocal influence (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995). These
relational elements can be bolstered by the heightened self-disclosure in CMC (Jiang, Bazarova, & Hancock, 2013) and social
support provided by online communities and through the development of weak tie relationships that encompass greater
expertise and more diverse information to support such dyadic interactions (Wellman & Gulia, 1999).
Online communities can offer leader–follower dyads vast amounts of data that can be pooled from multiple organizations,
industries, and cultures. The collection and analysis of such “big data” can enhance relational transparency (i.e., openness and
truthfulness) in dyadic relationships, which has been shown to be a critical factor in building trust in virtual relationships
(Jarvenpaa, Knoll, & Leidner, 1998). Moreover, anonymous communication and selective self-presentation in online communities
moderate evaluation apprehension and allow for the disclosure of more personal information (DeAndrea et al., 2011; Kahai, Sosik,
& Avolio, 2003). Yet, these relational elements can also be weakened by physical distance between leaders and followers given
the crisp, frank, and task-focused nature of CMC common to computer-mediated platforms like email (Kahai, 2013), and also
present opportunities to strategically exploit these technology features to create false impressions of engaging in normative
behavior that is actually not occurring (Birnholtz, Dixon, & Hancock, 2012). Physical distance affects the visibility of one's
behavior by others, and AIT, such as GPS devices and calendar systems, are available to reduce ambiguity about dyad members'
behavior. However, Birnholtz et al. (2012) found that employees held negative attitudes about such technology based on
concerns for personal privacy and a desire to retain ambiguity about one's activities and location. Thus, future research should
examine how dyads can more favorably appropriate these technologies to strike a better balance between transparency and
anonymity.
We have seen that physical distance between leaders and followers can create relational distance, which produces lower quality
LMX relationships (Napier & Ferris, 1993). However, it is unclear whether physical distance gets in the way of relationships between
leaders and followers in virtual contexts, since research with distributed teams has shown the relationships among members more
geographically dispersed from the leader were actually stronger (Gajendran & Joshi, 2012). Leaders and followers interacting online
who perceive more frequent communication, share the same language, and are familiar with the same managerial expectations
may produce higher quality LMX relationships, because increased communication builds stronger relationships and social support
(Walther, 2008), and individuals self-disclose more in CMC (Jiang et al., 2013).

Research suggests that experiencing emotional work events, such as organizational rallies, tributes to beloved colleagues, or
inspirational speeches about colleagues overcoming personal and/or professional challenges to achieve extraordinary success,
staged or framed by a leader may create affective reactions in followers that influence their attitudes toward work (Mignonac &
Herrbach, 2004) or towards each other (Jiang et al., 2013). Such affect-based perceptions and social identification processes when
interpreted through the latest facial/emotional recognition devices (Pentland & Choudhury, 2000) may compensate for
geographical dispersion of members in a dyad. In an experimental study of CMC versus FtF communication, Jiang et al. (2013)
found a strong reciprocity norm in dyadic CMC where mutual attraction became stronger over successive online interactions.
These authors described this effect as “perception-behavior intensification,” in which “partners jointly form intensified perceptions of
disclosure intimacy; this effect escalates intimacy of their reciprocated self-disclosures, which further escalates their intimacy
perceptions and so on” (p. 137). As virtual technologies become more ubiquitous and sophisticated, however, we expect followers
and leaders may not be as willing to follow a leader if they are not sure if they are interacting with an actual authentic leader, or
someone else falsely representing the leader, given the propensity for deception in CMC and online forums (Toma & Hancock, 2012).
Whether e-leadership emerges and can be sustained through enhanced relational interactions based on the loci and mechanisms of
leadership addressed above is a question for future leadership research.
4.2.2. Virtual groups
Organizations commonly deploy AIT to support the efforts of virtual teams in accomplishing complex tasks requiring
geographically-dispersed expertise and resources (Hoch & Kozlowski, 2012). E-leadership may occur within virtual groups that
are populated by members that share leadership within an organization, or represent broader online communities that transcend
organizations, industries, and even nations. Avolio et al. (2001) posited that elements of the group's internal system (e.g., shared
mental models) are reciprocally related to its social interaction elements including what technologies groups choose to
appropriate and the processes it follows to produce outcomes. Central to this proposition is the potential for group members
communicating via AIT to converge on shared norms for idea generation, participation, collaboration, and influence.
Smith-Slater and Anderson (1994) proposed that group support system technology facilitates the mutual agreement and
understanding of users by allowing them to express opinions and interpret information from other members in a way that
reduces the noise associated with FtF interactions, focusing attention on ideas rather than personalities. Building on this premise,
results of a field study of virtual teams indicated that the quality of collaboration among members mediated the relationship between
transformational leadership of the team leader and team performance (Kahai, Sosik, & Avolio, 2013). A virtual team leader's behavior
may thus influence the extent and quality of collaboration (i.e., a form of shared leadership) and team performance. Similarly, group
members who interact in online communities for organizational purposes may influence individuals or collectives through shared
leadership processes. The online social support dynamics of such communities (see DeAndrea et al., 2011) can create either
constructive or destructive shared norms, values, visions, or outcomes. Constructive applications of these communities include
Internet groups such as Community Care, Teachers Connect, and SeniorNet, which address social, physical, and mental health
challenges of individuals by providing resources, information exchange, and forums for social support and answers to questions from
experts or individuals facing similar issues.
Unfortunately, there is also a destructive side to online social support, as illustrated by extreme communities (e.g., pro-anorexia,
pro-bulimia, anti-recovery) and hate groups (e.g., Neo-Nazi, Ku Klux Klan, al Qaeda) that appropriate AIT to spread dangerous visions,
values, and ideologies. The provision of anonymity, access, reduced social distance, and impression management associated with AIT
offer extremists a safe-haven to propagate their group's ideologies and plan collective actions, while concealing their identities,
reaching a broader global audience, and avoiding interactions with agencies seeking to control them. Eberly et al.'s (2013) integrative
process model of leadership suggests that such group dynamics underlie a form of e-leadership that can expand influence on
perception-behavior intensification (Jiang et al., 2013).
Such extreme communities present researchers with opportunities to study large group processes and outcomes associated
with destructive forms of leadership (cf. Eubanks & Mumford, 2010). For example, these communities may offer unethical or
abusive leaders a forum to manipulate their followers, organizations, and more broadly the general public. The insulated and
controlled online environmental characteristics described by DeAndrea et al. (2011) may facilitate impression management and
inauthentic imagery leading to false impressions of the leader. Over-interpretation of limited socio-emotional and social identity
cues, common in such online forums (Walther, 2008), may accelerate group members' identification with unethical or abusive
leaders skilled at making favorable online impressions. At the same time, the ability to share information quickly and widely over
the Internet, through leaks, which are then picked up by the media may actually empower disgruntled followers and/or fringe
groups. Such capabilities may allow followers to reveal misconduct, secrecy, and obfuscation of the leader, which provides a very
important avenue for future research on e-leadership to focus in terms of pluses and minuses of online groups.
4.2.3. Context
Avolio et al. (2001) proposed that context, which includes the structural features and spirit of AIT, nature of the task, and internal
and external environment, influences the social interaction processes and outcomes of e-leadership. This line of reasoning suggests
that contextual features associated with e-leadership may shape the transmission of e-leadership by enhancing or diminishing its
emergence and effectiveness. For example, in organizations using social media (e.g., Facebook) for business purposes, e-leadership
may support the empowerment of followers and their relationships with individuals inside and outside of the organization.
Facebook's open platform for self-expression and communication can create a context for empowerment and positivity that fuels
constructive attitudes and behaviors in future e-leadership and FtF interactions (Eberly et al., 2013). These social media features can

create feelings among followers of being connected with each other (Sheldon, Abad, & Hinsch, 2011), which parallels the solidarity or
collective identity that inspirational motivation behaviors displayed by transformational leaders creates (Bass, 1985). Prior research
on GDSS and leadership in virtual worlds (e.g., Sosik et al., 1997; Eisenbeiss, Blechschmidt, Backhaus, & Freund, 2012) provides some
evidence demonstrating how the technical features of anonymity and its de-individuating effects on individuals created a common
social identity in teams.
Social media and virtual world technologies seem to attract users who wish to fulfill basic human needs for relatedness and
self-expression. In four experiments, Sheldon et al. (2011) reported that many Facebook users were initially motivated to come
online because of feelings of disconnection. Consistent with theories of self-determination (Deci & Ryan, 2000) and existence,
relatedness, and growth (Alderfer, 1972), Facebook users satisfy their need for relatedness through participation via social media
networks. This satisfaction of relatedness needs among followers, leaders, teams and so forth, is an important focus of leaders who
are more likely to display higher levels of transformational leadership behaviors (Sosik, Chun, Blair, & Fitzgerald, in press). Thus,
we could expect transformational leadership to be an additional proponent of fostering these needs when individual interactions
are mediated via these forms of AIT.
Social media use also can evoke negative affect among followers seeking to meet their needs for relatedness when they make
unfavorable social comparisons of their life events with those of others. In a longitudinal study of young adults using Facebook,
Kross et al. (2013) reported that the more users felt lonely, depressed, or distressed, the more they used Facebook, but this
increased use led to decreases in affective and cognitive wellbeing over time. Thus, users' desire to satisfy the human need for
relatedness by making a connection through Facebook may lead to decreases rather than increases in users' subjective well-being.
Future research should examine whether this negative effect of social media can be eliminated or allayed by transformational
leadership behaviors, which prior research conducted in GDSS contexts has shown to be linked with more positive affective and
motivational states including satisfaction, extra effort (Sosik, 1997), and flow experiences (Sosik, Kahai, & Avolio, 1999).
The poly-functional and fragmented tasks performed in remote online settings may also influence how e-leadership impacts
outcomes (Stokols et al., 2009). Kelley and Kelloway (2012) found that transformational leadership can mediate the relationships
between contextual elements (i.e., perceived control, regularly scheduled communication, and prior knowledge) and followers'
perceptions of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and manager trust in remote, but not proximal environments. They
concluded that, “in the remote environment, context is so omnipresent that it filters the way in which individuals perceive and interpret
leader behaviors…To manage perceptions of leadership style in the remote environment, it is not sufficient to exhibit specific
transformational behaviors; leaders must manage, consider, and adapt to the characteristics of the context in which the relationships are
conducted” (p. 446). Future research might examine how e-leaders manage online contextual characteristics such as limited
socioemotional and social identity cues building upon prior work on leadership behavior in GDSS contexts (e.g., Sosik et al., 1997, 1999).
E-leadership can be shaped by the values, norms, and practices shared by organizational members and the cultural values of
the nations from which they originate. Research conducted as part of the GLOBE project (see House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, &
Gupta, 2004, for a comprehensive overview) suggests that organizations operating in countries with collectivistic cultures value
in-group collectivism (i.e., the group is more important than the individual). In collectivistic cultures, leaders, and followers may
agree to depart from the intended spirit of AIT systems that foster self-promotion, and instead emphasize the need for frequent
online interactions and maintaining a close circle of online business associates and friends. Such e-leadership influences may
highlight the relationship-building features of social media, online communities, and virtual worlds that reinforce the collective
self and satisfy the strong needs for affiliation found in collectivistic cultures, while being cognizant of the potential for social
media use to lower subjective wellbeing over time (Kross et al., 2013).
5. Expanding e-leadership theory: capping-off a micro-OB focus
Recent trends in AIT applications, such as crowd sourcing, data scraping, Google Glass, big data, facial/emotional recognition,
and gamification, have broadened both the range of micro-OB sources of e-leadership influence and the way in which it is
transmitted and received by those involved in its interactive and dynamic processes. Features of AIT can either enhance or
diminish the effects of leaders and followers exerting e-leadership influence depending on the source of e-leadership, its
mechanisms for transmission and the technology being used (Kahai, 2013). Leaders and followers interacting via AIT can
appropriate system features in ways that are consistent (or inconsistent) with their prior history, organizational culture, and
context (Avolio et al., 2001), as well as import their personal attributes and interpersonal relationship characteristics (DeAndrea
et al., 2011) to create different loci and mechanisms of e-leadership.
Similar to leadership in FtF contexts, e-leadership can be transmitted via the traits (i.e., who one is), behaviors (i.e., what one
does), cognitions (i.e., what and how one thinks), and affect (i.e., what one feels) associated with leaders and followers
(Hernandez et al., 2011). Each of these mechanisms provides unique ways for leadership influence to be transmitted and received
by others and offers implications for e-leadership theory. Examining these mechanisms as they occur in discrete event cycles may
allow researchers to embrace both a between- and within-person/dyad/group focus, thereby responding to calls for a more
comprehensive analysis of topics such as e-leadership from a micro-OB perspective.
5.1. Traits
How are traits likely to factor into the shift to greater electronic communication? Research indicates that a shift to greater
electronic communication is likely to impact the importance of certain traits with respect to the emergence of leadership. Balthazard,

Waldman, and Warren (2009) found that extraversion and emotional stability predicted the emergence of transformational
leadership in FtF teams, but not in computer-mediated teams. The authors suggested that this pattern was likely due to reduced levels
of nonverbal cues in CMC settings.
Avolio et al. (2001) identified the diversity of group members as an important influence on the processes and outcomes of
e-leadership. Trait profiles including demographics and personal attributes of individual leaders and followers represent one
aspect of diversity (Yukl, 2010), which we consider to be a mechanism through which e-leadership can be transmitted and
received. For example, the appropriation of AIT appears to differ by gender and gender identity. This has been shown where men
appropriate technology based on how useful it is, whereas women appear to be more influenced by ease of use and subjective
norms for interactions within the community (Ventatesh & Morris, 2000).
Internet use by college students differs by gender; males spend more time online engaging in leisure activities, while females
use the Internet for communication and academic purposes more than males (Jackson et al., 2003). These findings suggest that
leaders and followers who are skilled at e-leadership may possess different predispositions that may require different leadership
styles to optimize interactions. Extending this logic to leadership development, using computer simulations and serious gaming
(Ives & Jungles, 2008; Jang & Ryu, 2011) as a means for developing e-leadership competencies may work better for different
groups based on gender, national origin, and other dispositions.
Self-efficacy beliefs also influence the use of AIT. The more individuals use the Internet, the more they believe they can connect
with others with dissimilar beliefs and interests, which leads to increased levels of self-efficacy. In contrast, when individuals
believe they can use the Internet to connect with others who share similar beliefs and interests, they reported decreased levels of
self-efficacy (Furutani et al., 2007). The latter result contradicts what social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986) would predict
for FtF interactions because individuals typically identify with those who hold similar beliefs and interests in FtF settings; perhaps
this difference is a function of over-interpretation of social identity cues in CMC relative to FtF interactions (Walther, 2008). We
also expect that in the near future access to data on cultural differences and emotional recognition, through technology such as
Google Glass, may assist leaders and followers with this challenge by providing more readily available data.
Malaysian technology users have been described as being more extroverted and open to experience than non-users
(Hassanzadeh, Gholami, Allahyar, & Noordin, 2012). Jackson et al. (2003) found extroverted American adults to be associated
with greater Internet use that provided social support and fostered problem solving. Team members who were more extraverted
and emotionally stable were more likely to emerge as leaders in FtF settings, but not in virtual teams where linguistic quality of
written communication predicted the emergence of transformational leadership (Balthazard et al., 2009). Other studies, however,
have found introverts use the Internet more often than extraverts because they perceive online interactions as more controllable
than offline (Orr et al., 2009). These mixed results suggest that individuals who are extraverted, open-minded, and emotionally
stable may tend to be more effective e-leaders, but interacting via AIT could mediate the influence of personality traits on
e-leadership when online forums offer a sense of control and satisfaction of needs that are lacking in offline interactions.
Facebook use seems to satisfy two primary human needs: the need to belong and the need for self-presentation (Sheldon et al.,
2011). The need to belong has implications for followers who possess a high need for affiliation (McClelland, 1978) or leaders
with a high need for social approval (Sosik & Dinger, 2007). Followers seeking affiliation may be attracted to leaders who create a
hospitable virtual space for them in online communities and virtual worlds through supportive and complimentary communication
that raises their level of self-esteem and efficacy. In return, leaders seeking validation from followers may garner favorable comments
and postings of being “liked” or “friended” by followers. Leaders could then use such connections for either socially appropriate or
inappropriate/abusive initiatives that take advantage of the good will of followers.
Considering these preliminary results, we believe that focusing on leader and follower trait profiles is important for
understanding how individuals influence each other and shape the context of e-leadership as successive events play out across
online space and time. Data scraping programs, among other new big data applications coming online that extract information
from individuals' profiles on social media, may be useful for analyzing trait profiles of leaders and followers interacting online in
future leadership research (Zimmer, 2010).
5.2. Behaviors
Eberly et al. (2013) suggested that behaviors represent a primary mechanism for transmitting leadership. Behaviors displayed by
the leader, followers, or leader–follower dyad influence the social interaction within groups whose leadership is mediated by
technology (Avolio et al., 2001). Yukl (2010) suggested that effective leaders exhibit behavioral flexibility, namely they need to
display a variety of leadership styles such as directive to participative, and transactional to transformational depending on the
situation. Operating in online contexts, the structure and goal-setting associated with directive leadership is likely more important in
the early stages of online dyadic and group interactions so that shared values, norms, and practices can be established for enhanced
communication and effectiveness in subsequent interactions (Weisband, 2008). As relationships develop over time and higher levels
of trust emerge, e-leaders may be able to shift to more participatory and transformational behaviors, which may allow for a greater
exchange of ideas, enhanced information flow, and generation of more creative solutions. Such input-soliciting and helping behaviors
would be especially suitable in contexts characterized by greater geographic distance, infrequent perceived communication, language
differences, ambiguity about one's activities and location, and unfamiliarity — characteristics typically associated with online and
remote interactions (Cairncross, 1997), virtual worlds, and chat rooms (Sutanto, Tan, Battistini, & Phang, 2011).
A second behavioral facet that is relevant to both FtF and e-leadership is the ability to resolve conflicts that emerge when
working with a diverse followership. Such conflicts may arise because followers work in different time zones, have competing

agendas, speak different languages, hold diverse cultural values (Nardon & Steers, 2008), misinterpret socioemotional and social
identity cues (Walther, 2008), and reveal deceptions made by colleagues using AIT (Toma & Hancock, 2012). These contextual
elements suggest that successful resolution of conflicts may be a function of greater perspective-taking capacity among followers,
which would require e-leaders to build consensus, forge common values and purposes, and use intellectual stimulation to foster
the consideration of alternative viewpoints and questioning of assumptions held by followers. Transformational leadership may
be especially potent in online contexts, which create de-individuating effects with followers thereby making the group's identity
more salient than individual identities and critical analysis and debate more comfortable (Eisenbeiss et al., 2012).
A third behavioral aspect for e-leaders concerns how they perceive and treat close and distant followers in virtual contexts.
Implicit leadership theory suggests that a follower's perception of leader behaviors can vary widely due to the range of different
ideas individuals hold about what constitutes effective leadership (Lord, Foti, & De Vader, 1984). These incongruent perceptions
become even more divergent in virtual contexts where followers perceive greater physical and social distance, and experience
less frequent task-related interactions (Antonakis & Atwater, 2002). Heidegger (1977) pointed out a variety of perceptual
interpretations individuals make in constructing reality and identified technology as a means to assist individuals to frame
societal norms and purposes amidst such problematic ambiguities inherent in social systems. To allay these potential problems,
leaders may use AIT, such as video-sharing, instant messaging, and social media, to more effectively transmit their leadership with
the goal of reinforcing greater consistencies across their respective followers in how they are interpreted (Kahai, 2013).
A fourth consideration concerns how effectively e-leaders can develop their geographically dispersed and/or socially-distanced
followers through the delegation of tasks and the provision of effective feedback. Transformational leadership that challenges
followers, yet gives them social support, is associated with higher levels of follower learning goal orientation and career aspirations
(Sosik, Godshalk, & Yammarino, 2004). But, we don't yet know how AIT, such as virtual worlds, serious games, and simulations, can be
used as forums for learning where challenging yet supportive interventions are designed to help identify followers' talents and
competencies. For example, massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), such as Second Life or World of Warcraft,
allow users to design their own avatar characters complete with unique personal attributes, knowledge, skills, and abilities. Ives and
Jungles (2008) pointed out that these technologies can support learning by giving distant followers a greater sense of social presence
and connection, allowing them to visualize their potential for improvement, and to simulate events they are likely to encounter in real
life. Such AIT also can be used to make e-leaders more aware of the preferred attributes they use to characterize their e-leadership,
which may also transfer to how they lead in off-line contexts (Jang & Ryu, 2011).
5.3. Cognition
AIT may influence both positively or negatively the cognition of its users, for example, by promoting multitasking and information
filtering required of individuals using AIT (Stokols et al., 2009) to sort through voluminous storehouses of online data. Both normal
and pathological use of the Internet can cause feelings of distress and being overwhelmed from a cognitive overload of information
(Jaffe, 2012), potentially creating a sense that one possesses what Wordsworth (1926) eloquently described as “a mind forever
voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone.” However, with the continued use of AIT, individuals can learn to sift through vast
quantities of information and identify relationships between pieces of information with less effort and more efficiency over time,
maximizing appropriation of AIT (Small & Vorgan, 2008). Data mining software, podcasts, and social media offers e-leaders the
opportunity to leverage a vast amount of information provided by a range of constituents in relatively short time spans for ethical or in
some cases unethical purposes. This information represents what team researchers such as Small, Moody, Siddarth, and Bookheimer
(2009) called “transactive memory,” or the collective memory of groups that can be easily tapped into to address challenges and
opportunities, or to align followers quickly to serve a leader's personal mission or aspirations.
Effective e-leaders are rated by their followers as “being present” within the virtual community. Social presence fosters group
cohesion and personal engagement in online settings where nonverbal conversational cues, inclusiveness, and perceived social
support in individual interactions may become lost (MacLean, 2008). In online communities, social presence may be a function of
not only perceived interaction frequency (Cairncross, 1997), but also impressions e-leaders make on their followers when they
interact using social media or in MMORPGs. Impression management can be enhanced with social media by increasing the
number of connections with followers, and increasing the amount of detail provided in personal profiles (Kramer & Winter,
2008). However, online personal profiles are often deceptive and the detection of deception in online forums may be difficult
(Toma & Hancock, 2012). Impressions made by an avatar created by a leader in a MMORPG may be suspect given the difficulties of
confirming the true “personhood” of the avatar and individual differences in self-presentation competency. Specifically, introverts are
more likely than extraverts to present their authentic selves and share intimate facts about themselves online (Amichai-Hamburger,
2005). As such, followers may find it difficult to know whether their interactions with different leaders are “real” given the
requirements of relational transparency and authentic behavior for effective self-regulation processes associated with authentic
leadership (Luthans & Avolio, 2003). Future research is needed to examine how leaders and followers create requisite social norms
and appropriate AIT to balance the tension between transparency and ambiguity in online contexts.
Effective e-leaders also understand the expectations of followers and use this knowledge to frame and communicate a clear
vision. Heidegger (1977) suggests that technology is a tool that can assist individuals with “enframing” or giving meaning to
situations, and for revealing truths about the people and events in one's life. Processes such as cognitive mapping and
crowdsourcing with Twitter, Facebook, or M-Turk, may provide e-leaders with distributed cognitions of followers' memories of
events and expectations for the future, allowing for better refinement of the leader's understanding of interdependencies among
followers and their situations (Jaffe, 2012). Such understanding can play a central role in how leaders develop their own

memories, attributions, schemata for visions, scripts for leadership behaviors, and strategies for tackling problems (Wofford &
Goodwin, 1994) in online contexts where information overload, violation of privacy rights, and deception are common.
Building cognitive forms of trust with followers is another aspect of effective e-leadership that requires further scrutiny (Bass,
2008). Because of the social and physical distance between leaders and followers working in virtual settings, individuals need to
determine if the source(s) of leadership are competent, benevolent, and honest in order to gain trust (Jarvenpaa et al., 1998). This
determination can be challenging in online contexts where individuals often use AIT in deceptive ways to hide from interpersonal
encounters and reduce the visibility of their offline behaviors (Birnholtz et al., 2012). Avolio et al. (2001) proposed that trust mediates
relationships between leadership, interaction processes, and outcomes in virtual teams. However, trust may be more difficult to build
given the social and physical distance between virtual team members. Merriman, Schmidt, and Dunlap-Hinkler (2007) reported
lower levels of trust and support in virtual contexts, especially for virtual workers who were “free-agent” consultants in temporary
employment relationships. As technologies such as Google Glass and emotional recognition become more common, we expect
leaders and followers will use them to assist in the revelation of truths about people and events, and in the assessment of trust based
on perceived ability, benevolence, and integrity that can be validated with data from previous leader–follower interactions that are
culled from the Internet and other sources. This alone provides great promise for a whole new way of examining leadership and trust
development as well as for manipulating the conditions for gaining trust for self-interested purposes.
5.4. Affect
Affect represents an important component of virtual team processes that are shaped through the e-leader's messages and
behaviors and the team member's attitudes toward how technology is appropriated and how they feel about each other, the
leader, and contextual attributes or events (Avolio et al., 2001). Individuals who are more likely to effectively appropriate AIT,
while holding a positive attitude toward the technology have been shown to be more open to new experiences, agreeable, and
either introverted (Orr et al., 2009) or extraverted (Hassanzadeh et al., 2012). Nacke, Grimshaw, and Lindley (2010) showed how
users of online games experienced positive affect associated with their perceived competence, immersion in the game, and
challenge associated with playing the game. In contrast, continued use of Facebook over time has been shown to be associated
with decreases in affective and cognitive wellbeing because users sometimes make damaging social comparisons that may deflate
their self-esteem (Kross et al., 2013). As such, we believe that individuals who possess trait positive, rather than trait negative
affect (Watson & Slack, 1993), varying levels of extraversion and openness to experience in terms of the “Big 5” personality factors
(Judge, Heller, & Mount, 2002), and personalities prone to more frequent experiences of flow in computer-mediated interactions
(Sosik et al., 1999) may promote more effective e-leadership processes and outcomes.
Other dispositional theories related to affect may also inform future research on the role of positive affect in e-leadership. For
example, Judge and Bono (2001) proposed that core self-evaluations (CSEs), comprised of four narrower traits – self-esteem,
generalized self-efficacy, emotional stability, and internal locus of control – were associated with effective functioning. Thus far,
effective AIT usage has been empirically linked to emotional stability (Hassanzadeh et al., 2012) and the internal locus of control
of users (Chak & Leung, 2004), but not to their self-esteem. Future research is needed to examine how self-images of leaders and
followers using social media are influenced, especially because the emotional content of language is important in managing
others' impressions of oneself in online contexts (Toma & Hancock, 2012).
Affective events theory (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996) has promise for informing how affect may emerge and influence events
that shape the behavior of e-leaders as they react to the adoption of new technologies or interact online with followers. This
theory suggests both between-person and within-person processes by which e-leadership behavior can be either affect or
judgment driven. At the within-person level, the e-leader's disposition could moderate the relationship between how e-leaders
perceive events and the affect that stems from such perceptions, which in turn could produce affect-driven behavior. At the
between-person level, the e-leader's disposition may moderate the relationship between how they perceive features of the
environment and cognitive evaluations of their e-leadership, which produces judgment-driven behavior. Features of the
environment may also influence events at the within-person level, since cognitive evaluations of e-leadership and affect can cross
levels to influence each other over event cycles (Eberly et al., 2013). Research on CMC suggests similar cyclical processes in which
interaction events prompt intimate reciprocations of self-disclosure over time (Jiang et al., 2013), which suggests that some forms
of AIT may accelerate the emotional bonding processes in dyads.
Individuals differ greatly in their attitudes toward the use and adoption of technology (Schepers, Wetzels, & Ruyter, 2005).
Adequate training for those with negative attitudes toward technology use or who are not digital natives, i.e. people who grew up
with technology and don't know about life without it, could be designed and tested in future research (Walker, Dworkin, &
Connell, 2011). Experience suggests that with the passage of time, those who are not digital natives end up adopting technology
nevertheless because of the need to communicate with those who grew up with technology or simply because they have become
more comfortable with it. In sum, much remains to be explored in terms of the influence that cognitions, affect, emotions, and
behaviors have for leaders and followers interacting through the use of AIT.
6. How AIT is transforming the ways we work at meso-levels
Following from Kahai (2013), we organize the type of general changes occurring at work with the following themes:
(1) increasing use of AIT in organizations, (2) greater transparency and openness, (3) the rise of social networks, (4) constant

contact, and (5) increase use of tracking devices. In the following sections, we discuss these respective changes and how they are
influencing the loci and mechanisms of leadership.
6.1. Increasing use of AIT in organizations
As new tools emerge to connect us in social networks and support the development of online distributed communities, the
definition of what constitutes a “virtual team” has expanded. The creation of social media, such as blogs and micro-blogs, content
communities, social networking sites, virtual worlds are examples of where the boundaries of virtual teaming may be stretched
beyond our traditional notions of such teams (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010).
Avolio et al. (2001) devoted significant attention to virtual teams in their exploration of e-leadership. Yet, a greatly expanded
literature has emerged that identifies three key dimensions that are commonly characteristic of virtual teams: (1) relatively
limited lifespan, dependent on transient organizational or task needs, (2) team dispersion in terms of geographical, social, or
temporal space, and (3) technological enablement (Jarvenpaa & Leidner, 1999; Powell, Piccoli, & Ives, 2004). Indeed, there is a
growing body of research on virtual teaming that examines how communication technology use is related to aspects of mediated
team collaboration. Powell et al. (2004) summarizing this literature identified research on virtual team inputs (e.g., team design,
cultural differences), socio-emotional processes (e.g., trust, cohesion), and outputs (e.g., team performance, satisfaction). Past
research suggests that although collaborative technologies can enable virtual teamwork, key aspects of FtF interaction are often
attenuated or completely absent—especially visual cues, the immediacy of feedback, and a sense of presence of self, others, and
objects (Dennis, Fuller, & Valacich, 2008). These technological limitations can lead to difficulties related to collaboration activities
including the sharing of ideas, convergence with solutions or decisions, and the coordination of work (Powell et al., 2004).
Ultimately, collaborative technology can either enable or hinder a sender's ability to exchange data and information (both content
and cues), and the capability of that information to change understanding or behavior of other virtual team members. Montoya et al.
(2011) reported that higher-performing teams perceived communication in a 3D Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE) to be
easier than the lower performing teams. For members of higher performing teams, results suggested that communication difficulties
were mitigated as communication was perceived to be more natural and teammates more responsive. Higher-performing teams
perceived they were better able to coordinate their teamwork by developing clear strategies and reaching consensus as compared to
lower-performing teams.
Cameron and Webster (2005) found that a common form of communication in virtual teams is instant messaging (IM). In their
analysis of how IM was appropriated, Cameron and Webster (2005) reported that IM spirit is characterized by informality and is
perceived to be much less rich than FtF communication. Cameron and Webster's (2005) results demonstrated that employees use IM
not only as a replacement for other communication channels, but also as an additional method for collaboration. However, one of the
potential downsides of appropriating IM is where participants jumped the communication queue in front of waiting others.
Constant access to AIT, pressures to reduce travel expenses, and increased presence of Millennials in the workplace are fueling a
shift to greater incidence of electronic communication in organizations either through virtual teams or on a broader community scale
(Kahai, 2013). This sort of transformative shift can lead to significant changes in what we consider to be the loci and mechanisms of
leadership. For instance, electronic communication was expected to reduce the effects of domination by a few and enable more equal
participation in organizations, shifting the locus of leadership to a collective level (Sproull & Kiesler, 1986). However, forces against
promoting such collective interactions or shifts in leadership locus remain today across many organizations, communities, and
societies. For example, Weisband, Schneider, and Connolly (1995) reported that influence behaviors and their effects did not get
evened out by the use of electronic communication channels when deep status differences existed within the group. Early research on
the appropriation of AIT suggests that the shift to greater electronic communication may be accompanied by a shift to the collective as
the locus of leadership, but this may occur more readily where the members of the collective are of equal status, or when a culture for
collaboration is already in place that facilitates that type of appropriation of AIT.
Electronic communication may affect how one's emotions are conveyed (Kahai, 2013). Most electronic media reduce the
nonverbal cues (Kahai & Cooper, 1999). The extraction of emotion via less media rich technologies may then contribute to
receivers seeing positive messages as less positive and negative messages as more negative (Byron, 2008). As noted by Daft and
Lengel (1984), the medium of information (e.g., FtF, telephone) affects the richness of information. Also, while users of electronic
media are known to compensate for the challenges they encounter in using AIT (Kock, 2004), they are less likely to compensate
for transmitting emotions in that they may not fully appreciate the inability of receivers to perceive the emotions or tone they are
trying to convey (Kruger, Epley, Parker, & Ng, 2005). The inability of leaders to convey their emotions accurately or to interpret
those displayed by others can make it challenging to connect with followers and energize them when using AIT (Erez, Misangyi,
Johnson, LePine, & Halverson, 2008). This may be especially problematic for charismatic or transformational leaders who often
use emotions to positively influence or motivate followers (Bass, 2008).
Until recently, the manifestation of emotions in CMC and other technology platforms for e-leadership has been limited to
text-based messages and emoticons, while the measurement of emotions has been restricted to self-report instruments
(e.g., Manser, Cooper, & Trefusis, 2012) and experience sampling techniques where respondents are periodically paged
throughout the day via electronic devices, instant messages, or Twitter and requested to report their affective states (Hektner,
Schmidt, & Csikszentmihalyi, 2006). However, promising advances in technology are now making the experience, expression,
and recognition of emotions more realistic and relevant for e-leadership research and practice. We believe this progress will
lead to the heightening of leaders' and followers' awareness of the potential for technology to add to, rather than detract from,
the emotional experience associated with leadership events. One such technology is called affective haptics, which Arafsha,

Masudul Alam, and El Saddik (2012) defined as, “computer systems that affect a human's emotional condition by the sense of
touch” (p. 350). Building upon earlier technology that can recognize human faces and understand the expression of emotions
displayed (Pentland & Choudhury, 2000), this type of AIT involves the exchange of power (e.g., heat, pressure, vibrations)
through contact with parts of the human body via tactile sensors or jackets simulating feelings of touching and/or being touched,
controlled by a programmed interaction algorithm (MacLean, 2008). Research on the use of touch for recognizing and
expressing emotion via computer interfaces is just emerging. Smith and MacLean (2007) demonstrated how emotions could be
transmitted between couples and strangers using haptic devices; couples in close personal relationships reported greater liking
of experienced and recognized emotions in virtual contexts than did strangers. As such, a history of interactions and sufficient
levels of trust between leaders and followers interacting online may be a prerequisite for the use of haptic devices to simulate
emotional motivational responses that occur in leader–follower relationships. However, we need to be cautious that individuals
or groups do not use this technology to build relationships based on false data, premises, or intentions.
Reviews of the leadership literature (Bass, 2008; Yukl, 2010) suggest that human failings (e.g., distorted perceptions, biases,
fatigue, etc.) can produce dysfunctional emotions (e.g., anger, fear, despair) in leaders and followers, thereby potentially yielding
suboptimal e-leadership processes and outcomes. This possibility, coupled with the societal trend that personal presence is
optional for many activities that can now be performed virtually (e.g., online training and education, working from home,
socializing online), raises the interesting possibility that in the future robots may serve in certain leadership and followership
roles because they are not influenced by emotions. Samani, Koh, Saadatian, and Polydorou (2012) pointed out that humans make
bad decisions because they are not able to fully process the range of emotions they experience throughout the day, but robots can
be programmed to express only positive or neutral emotional states. However, these authors failed to recognize that robots might
be programmed to express negative emotions, such as anger and rage, reflecting the dark side of leadership. Samani et al. (2012)
suggested that, “the robot assigned to handle high-risk trading should not only have character traits which will ensure that it will
constantly remain analytical and disciplined, but it should also be instilled with a sense of disappointment and shame towards
other robot associates” (p.162). Other researchers are more skeptical arguing that robots cannot yet think creatively (Goldenberg
& Mazursky, 2002), exercise moral judgment, accumulate experiences with each action they perform, or interpret unfolding
events (Dreyfus, Dreyfus, & Athanasiou, 2000).
We believe the possibility of robot technology fully controlling e-leadership processes and outcomes is unlikely, yet
interesting to consider. Nevertheless, if technology is developed to the point that robots can recognize and express emotions,
monitor psychological states and conditions, and suggest actions to humans without the capacity to make moral judgments,
placing robots in e-leadership roles as advocated by Samani et al. (2012) would require careful scrutiny. Research on authentic
(Luthans & Avolio, 2003), ethical (Brown & Treviño, 2006), and destructive forms of leadership (Eubanks & Mumford, 2010)
suggests some potential danger in such initiatives; robots may provide leaders and followers with the impetus to do things that
they would have not done in the past — bypass their own emotions, logic, and reason, and blindly follow robotic directives
without adequately considering ethical, cultural, and legal considerations.
6.2. Greater transparency
Rhue and Sundararajan (in press) have shown increased use of AIT systems and the ubiquitous presence of web-based tools
and technologies both increases access to information and organizational leaders as well as levels of transparency. What
transpires at all organizational levels around the globe is becoming increasingly available to others because of the Internet and
greater reliance on information technology to do one's work (Kahai, 2013). By affecting what people know and think about their
leaders, this is potentially affecting the leadership cognitions and in turn choices seen as available and subsequent actions taken.
As noted through our references to big data, followers now have unprecedented access to information that influences their
sense-making related to how they interpret their leaders' transmissions. Such increased transparency and openness are occurring
in a variety of different ways. Today, whistleblowers have easy access to Internet sites like Wikileaks (http://wikileaks.org/) and
online media that they use to expose organizations and their leaders. Recently, we saw a number of classified documents and
exchanges within the National Security Agency (NSA), especially those related to its surveillance of U.S. citizens, being exposed by
a relatively low-level systems administrator working for the NSA (Hill, 2013). In this instance, just one individual with the right
point of contact can send an entire organization into chaos trying to respond to the leaked information.
Another example is that of an observer posting President Obama's offhanded reference to Kanye West as a “jackass” after the
latter inappropriately interrupted the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards (Gold, 2009). Such episodes sometimes cause major
damage to the reputation of the leader and the organization, especially if taken out of context. For example, at a firm called Cerner,
an employee forwarded the email of Cerner's CEO, Neal Patterson, to his managers in which he expressed annoyance with
declining work ethic (Murphy, 2006). In Cerner's case, the disclosure of the CEO's email led to a 29% drop in its stock price
(Murphy, 2006).
Emerging information technology also provides greater transparency into the efforts, interactions, and performance of
employees. Technologies such as Google Apps provides companies with real-time data on who has contributed what and when;
in situations where the relationship between effort and performance is somewhat ambiguous, such information can influence
how leaders and group members perceive others, trust them, and offer consideration (Kahai, 2013). Gaming virtual worlds, like
World of Warcraft, provide a different kind of visibility that facilitates leadership for activities that require individual players to
team-up with each other (Reeves, Malone, & O'Driscoll, 2008). Specifically, in this game, one can track individual performance
and make team member capabilities, performance, and compensation transparent. Game leaders can then link appropriate

rewards during or immediately following a performance cycle, therefore creating greater feelings of equity and meritocracy.
Additionally, transparency about how the team is performing and team members' capabilities can also help e-leaders choose or
modify their strategies in real-time, helping them select and define the roles of those who are most suitable for a particular task.
In this context, leaders are likely to face greater pressures to be authentic and transparent in their interactions with others. The
transparency enabled by AIT is also bringing behaviors, traits, and cognitions related to ethical leadership into focus. After seeing
numerous cases of ethical misconduct by organizational leaders, we are now facing the prospect of an increase in such cases
because AIT may provide organizational leaders with rather tempting situations that could foster either an abuse of power or even
ethical misconduct. We also see that leaders don't have to stick to their internal networks to observe what their employees are
doing outside of work. Indeed, a whole industry has now emerged to help companies dig up dirt on their adversaries by hacking
into their internal networks and emails, while investigating their Internet footprint (Kane, 2013). Leaders try to justify such
actions, at least in cases where they are spying within their internal networks, with the argument that whatever is happening on
an organization's internal system is no longer private (Barrett, 2013). Such actions may invariably lead to a loss of trust in leaders
and the organizations they represent.
Of course the use of AIT can also reinforce that an organization's leadership is transparent and acting in accord with high
ethical standards (Brown, Treviño, & Harrison, 2005). This can occur where leaders make sure their ethical actions are visible and
they engage in explicit communication about standards. Also, by using AIT they can more easily follow up with very large and
distributed workforces with suitable reinforcement for the messages and principles that they have shared. Certain traits of the
leader one identifies with (such as conscientiousness and agreeableness) and beliefs about morality contribute to the leader being
seen as ethical and promoting ethical behavior by others can be reinforced by the stories, actions and, behaviors transmitted via
AIT (Brown & Treviño, 2006).
6.3. The rise of social networks and addressing geographical distance
Current AIT is making it easy for individuals and organizations to create social networks, which are then harnessed for
communication, coordinated action, and learning. In addition to providing open platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn,
which allow anyone to join, many AIT products and services enable organizations to build social networks within their firewalls, such
as Yammer (www.yammer.com/) and Socialtext (www.socialtext.com). The widespread use of these platforms for social networking
is facilitated not only by their ease of use but also by the self-selection of individuals into a network (Kahai, 2013). For instance,
whenever two or more people use a particular hash tag in Twitter or Facebook, they automatically become part of a network of those
interested in what that hash tag represents. One can see the broad impact of social media on not only what constitutes the loci of
leadership, but also these new mechanisms of leadership through which they are transmitted.
Today, social media is enabling the conditions for a shift in the locus of leadership to the broader collective/context. According
to a social network perspective (Balkundi & Kilduff, 2006), leadership is viewed as an important social influence process for
building social capital in networks. Thus, it is only through an accurate understanding of the network and how it fits and our roles
within the network that we figure out what coalitions to build in pursuit of organizational goals. When social media are
introduced into the leadership dynamic, such AIT mechanisms facilitate this understanding and, thus, help a leader or leaders to
build relevant coalitions and social capital in a more timely and robust manner (Kahai, 2013). Social networks in which social
capital resides now represents a significant locus of leadership.
The complexity theory of leadership (Uhl-Bien, Marion, & McKelvey, 2007) suggests that social media are enabling a shift in
the locus of leadership more to what we have defined above as context. Different forms of social media today are making
organizational interactions more rapid and likely complex by enabling the development of social networks that span hierarchical
levels and departmental boundaries (Kahai, 2013). These networks then facilitate messy and imperfect information flows and
processing that the normal structure would not handle. Specifically, social networks serve to connect individuals and groups with
asymmetrical preferences (knowledge, skills, beliefs, values, etc.) on the fly and allow them to debate an issue to generate a new
understanding of complex challenges, which can promote greater alignment and trust in organizations.
Uhl-Bien et al. (2007) considers this emergent and dynamic interaction between individuals and ideas as leadership because
this complex dynamic is producing adaptive changes. One example of how social media can facilitate leadership was provided by
Thompson (2006), who described the following use of a wiki (called as Intellipedia) by previously isolated U.S. Intelligence
agencies: “…the usefulness of Intellipedia proved itself just a couple of months ago, when a small two-seater plane crashed into a
Manhattan building. An analyst created a page within 20 min, and over the next two hours it was edited 80 times by employees of
nine different spy agencies, as news trickled out. They rapidly concluded the crash was not a terrorist act.”
Participatory systems are now common in many Web 2.0 applications, such as healthcare (Patientslikeme for sharing
experiences on symptoms and treatments), encyclopediae (Wikipedia for general information on most any topic), commerce and
marketplaces (M-Turk for farming out simple repetitive tasks), astronomy (Galaxy Zoo for classifying galaxies), and bioscience
(FoldIt for protein folding). These technologies impact leadership transmissions by promoting self-disclosure and the freedom to
share details of leader and followers' work and personal lives in real time. Such disclosure, if properly managed, could allow a
leader to be more considerate towards particular followers, who might not share with the leader such details FtF. Self-disclosure
by the leader can make him/her seem more approachable, potentially reducing the power distance between leader and followers
(Napier & Ferris, 1993).
Organizational leaders can also use social media traces to learn what is on the minds of followers (Balkundi & Kilduff, 2006). For
example, at SAP, leaders monitor employee activity on social media to gauge if their message is reaching and impacting employees

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