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actually help strategic leaders implement their organization's strategy. Indeed, Brass and Krackhadl (1999) suggested that the high social intelligence characterizing transformational or charismatic leaders allows them to estimate the social capital, or the potential influence that is available to a leader based solely on the characteristics and the structure of a social setting. Transformational or charismatic leaders can both analyze the environment and enforce norms that help them accomplish instrumental objectives, such as strategy implementation without restricting the flow of information.
Berson and Avolio (2000b) examined the contribution of transformational leadership to the dissemination of strategic goals. Their findings indicated that senior executives rated more transformational were also more effective disseminators of strategic goals than were nontransformational executives. Transformational leaders exhibited a prospector strategy, which emphasized innovation and risk taking (Miles & Snow, 1978). Absence of transformational leadership at the top created confusion and a lack of alignment with regard to the dissemination of strategic goals across subsequent organizational levels.
Several researchers have offered models of organizational life cycles (e.g., Mintzberg, 1980; Quinn & Cameron, 1983) that included formation, development, maturity, and decline. In the strategic management literature (e.g., Zanetti & Cunningham, 2000) authors have highlighted certain strategic implications for each stage of an organization's life cycle with implications for leadership research. The new genre of leadership, specifically transformational leadership (Avolio, 1999; Bass, 1985), offers a range of leadership behaviors that could be examined in relationship to organizational life cycles. Strategic leadership theory can also benefit from studies that examine the cognitive and emotional characteristics of effective strategists. Boal and Hooijberg (2001) offered several avenues for future research emphasizing social capital, cognitive complexity, and managerial wisdom as a basis for examining how strategic leaders think and link their thinking to action.
In sum, the strategic management and leadership literatures are beginning to converge in ways that lay the groundwork for an interesting line of research projects. How CEOs and top management teams in organizations affect employee motivation and performance is now being researched in ways that will advance both areas.
E-Leadership and Its Distribution in Organizations
Leadership within the context of advanced information technology (AIT) has become a strategic asset for organizations (Avolio, Kahai, & Dodge, 2000). Such leadership may be
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termed e-leadership. It can involve one-to-one, one-to-many, and within- and between-group and collective interactions via AIT. Sociotechnical systems theory (e.g., Trist, 1993) suggests that organizational effectiveness is a function of how well the leadership and AIT systems are aligned with each other and the external environment. This theoretical framework suggests several important implications for e-leadership research within and between organizations.
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Several intraorganizational issues are relevant to e-leadership. First, e-leadership and technology can be viewed as system components that interact and evolve over time, providing structures that guide action in organizations using AIT. Avolio et al. (2000) identified adaptive structura-tion theory (AST; DeSanctis & Poole, 1994) as a useful theoretical framework for examining the interaction between technology and leadership. AST proposes that AIT affects human interaction by providing structures (e.g., rules, resources) stemming from the AIT, task, environment, emergent structures, and the group. People also influence the interpretation and use of AIT (i.e., adoption, resistance, or rejection). Leaders are also part of the sociotechnical system who "make meaning" by promoting technology adoption while considering the impact of existing organizational norms and culture on the use of this technology.
Leadership can promote successful adaptations to technological change, or it can restrict new AIT development, implementation, and adoption. Oz and Sosik (in press) surveyed 159 chief information officers and reported that passive leadership in AIT project teams was the main factor contributing to project failure. Vandenbosch and Ginzberg (1997) suggested that the adoption and derived benefits of groupware technology by organizations have fallen short of expectations because of the absence of leadership that fosters a cooperative culture. Leadership can restrict new AIT use to such an extent that it has little, if any, impact on organizational effectiveness. For example, autocratic leadership may repel attempts at collaboration enabled by groupware systems (Kahai, Sosik, & Avolio, 1997). Similarly, using LMX theory, a leader who has created an in-group versus an out-group among followers may inhibit collaboration using groupware due to a lack of trust (Avolio et al., 2001). Successful implementation and integration of AIT may require a significant transformation in the leadership system in advance of, during, and after the insertion of the new technology.
The IT revolution has influenced how new organizational systems need to be structured by leaders to adapt in the e-business context. Organic structures, shaped by massive enterprise-wide information systems, collaborative work
flows, and geographically distant or temporally removed teams, are required to achieve flexibility and openness in the current work environment (Oz, 2000).
Leaders today often make decisions that have relatively little historical base in the midst of rapidly changing technological environments (Sheehy & Gallagher, 1996). As such more disciplined analytical models of decision making, which dominated the strategic management literature (e.g., Stevenson, Pearce, & Porter, 1985), may have been modified to include models placing greater value on experimentation and continuous learning (Hedlund & Rolander, 1990).
Comprehensive enterprise-wide information systems have promoted collaborative sharing of information across organizational stovepipes, causing shifts in power dynamics and networking (Postmes, Spears, & Lea, 2000; Sheehy & Gallagher, 1996). Widespread availability of information on company intranets and the Internet provide followers with increased online networking opportunities via chat rooms, e-mail, and message boards, offering them alternative channels of information to those provided within traditional management hierarchies. These trends offer leaders an unprecedented opportunity to empower their followers to build more intelligent communities. However, AIT can also present leaders and followers with the challenges of information overload, followers' receiving messages that are discrepant with their leaders, and social isolation.
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Applications of E-Leadership Between Organizations
The proliferation of B2B and business-to-customer (B2C) transactions highlights the role of e-leadership as a between-systems concept (Avolio et al., 2000). For example, Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, Nissan, and Renault are partnering to develop a vast electronic supply chain network that will link their business transactions (Baer & Davis, 2001). This B2B initiative will require effective information and collaborative leadership that can harness technology to support virtual teams working across time zones and diverse cultures. Current leadership models need to incorporate macrolevel variables that span organizations, such as culture congruence and technology compatibility, which play a critical role in defining interorganizational leadership.
Another interorganizational issue relevant to e-leadership is the deployment of B2C technologies that link organizations to their customers via supply chains and enterprise information systems. Internet-mandated changes in business have prompted organizations such as Charles Schwab and Company to develop customer-centric strategies that implement personalized and customized technologies meeting
each customer's needs. The deployment and adaptation of such customer-centric systems pose significant challenges to both researchers and practitioners because our current models of leadership do not take into full consideration customers as constituents in the leadership system.
The Internet and other forms of AIT have enabled new models for interacting within and between organizations (e-business) and with customers and suppliers (e-commerce; O'Mahoney & Barley, 1999). The new business models highlight fundamental differences to leading in a digitized world that must now be researched. Studies of leadership in computer-mediated environments provide a foundation for examining how leaders influence social interactions within and between organizations. Early work on group support systems (GSSs) focused on how facilitation (e.g., George, Dennis, & Nunamaker, 1992) and emergent (e.g., Harmon, Schneer, & Hoffman, 1995) or appointed leadership (e.g., fcLim, Raman, & Wai, 1994) influenced group processes (e.g., consensus, communication content) and outcomes (e.g., decision quality, satisfaction). Evidence indicated that the type of facilitation and leadership had an impact in GSS contexts and highlighted the potential for GSS structures or processes (e.g.. anonymity) to substitute for or moderate leadership effects on group processes and outcomes (George, Easton, Nunamaker, & Northcraft, 1990; Ho & Raman, 1991).
Over the last decade, a series of research studies have systematically manipulated and measured effects of various leadership styles, including directive, participative, transactional, and transformational approaches, on various process and outcome variables collected in GSS contexts. Participative (directive) leadership for groups solving a less (more) structured task led to more solution proposals (Kahai et al, 1997). Transformational leadership has been linked with Kilgher levels of group potency (Sosik, Avolio, & Kahai, 1997), more questioning and supportive comments (Sosik, 1997), and more creative outcomes in terms of elaboration and originality (Sosik, Kahai, & Avolio, 1998) versus transactional leadership. Anonymity moderated the impact of leadership style on GSS performance depending on whether the group used the GSS to brainstorm or to complete a task report (Sosik et al., 1997). Anonymity also interacted with leadership to influence motivation levels of GSS users 'Sosik, Kahai, & Avolio, 1999).
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Several findings of GSS research are relevant for building new models of e-leadership. First, research on relational development in groupware contexts (Walther, 1995) suggests that groups may shift from task to relational communication over l|fne. Second, group history creates an embedded social structure that may influence the subsequent adoption and effective
Emerging Areas in Leadership Theory and Research 297
use of GSS technology (Weisband et al., 1995). Third, there may be differences in national and organizational cultures affecting the use of AIT. For example, collectivistic cultures may find collaborative technologies more useful than individualistic ones. Finally, whereas anonymity may enhance group identification of GSS users (Lea & Spears, 1992), it may make it difficult for users to judge the credibility of an idea in high power distance cultures (Dennis, Hilmer, & Taylor, 1998).
Relevant Models and Methods for E-Leadership
Several leadership models are relevant to examining e-leadership. Given that GSS process structure may neutralize leader efforts (Ho & Raman, 1991) and GSS anonymity may enhance effects of transformational leadership on group potency (Sosik et al., 1997), substitutes for leadership theory (Kerr & Jermier, 1978) may be a useful framework for examining how the context affects measurement of e-leadership. LMX theory (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995) may provide some insight on how dyadic relationships emerge in virtual contexts or how in-groups and out-groups differ in terms of trust, commitment, and motivation when interacting virtually. Theories of shared leadership (e.g., Avolio, 1999) may be helpful to understanding how team member perceptions influence trust and subsequent team interaction (e.g., efficacy, cohesion) and outcomes (e.g., creativity, satisfaction). Neo-charismatic theories (Conger & Kanungo, 1998; W. L. Gardner & Avolio, 1998) and social distance (Shamir, 1995) focusing on self-perceptions and self-presentation are relevant to examining how AIT influences leaders working at a distance virtually with followers.
What's Next With E-Leadership?
At the individual level of analysis, work is needed examining how leader-follower virtual interactions influence follower perceptions of leadership, the effectiveness of impression-management strategies (W. L. Gardner & Avolio, 1998), and perceptions of social distance (Shamir, 1995). At the group level, we need to examine shared leadership (Sivasubramaniam et al., 2000); interactions among leadership, AIT structural features, and task type (Sosik et al., 1997); the use of AIT within and between multicultural teams; how e-leadership transforms team processes and outcomes over time (Walther, 1995); and which forms of AIT best support e-leadership (Avolio et al., 2000). At the organizational level, work is required on culture and structural influences of AIT, on their interaction with leadership, and on the subsequent
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transformation of technology and leadership into an integrated system that works.
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In sum, organizations are dramatically changing with the integration of AIT. B2B and B2C models of e-commerce have enabled Web-based dot-com organizations, such as Amazon.com, to change the fundamentals of business. Such organizations possess structures, cultures, and human resources that are vastly different from traditional bricks-and-mortar organizations. Acritical research question is, How does the integration of technology into organizations affect our models, measures, and development of leadership?
CONCLUSION: NEW LEADERS IN NEW ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXTS
Projected workplace trends toward increased diversity, multiple generations, teaming, innovation, environmental turbulence, global competition, and AIT suggest that certain attributes may be required for leaders to adapt to and fit in with these trends. Increased diversity will require leaders to possess a cultural intelligence characterized by tolerance, empathy, and cooperativeness to appreciate differences among followers. Leaders will need integrative complexity to synthesize multiple perspectives into coherent solutions (Simonton, 1994). Leading followers from the baby boom, generation X, and Internet generation cohorts will require leaders to appreciate cross-generational differences. Adapting to information-based team environments will require leaders to understand a collectivism orientation (Jung et al., 1995), systems thinking (Mumford et al., 2000), and capacities for filtering large amounts of information coming from computer networks (Avolio et al., 2000). Dealing with environmental turbulence and global competition will require leaders to be adaptable (Mann, 1959), resilient to stress (Goleman, 1998), fully knowledgeable of competitors and their products (Kirpatrick & Locke, 1991), and capable of solving complex problems quickly (Zaccaro et al., 2000).
How are leaders being selected and prepared for these changes? Based on the available evidence, the answer is probably not well. Leadership failure rates range from 50% to 60%, costing organizations billions of dollars each year (Hogan et al., 1994). To reduce failure rates will require a better integration of the various lines of leadership research. For example, there is a need for research to examine the intersection of trait-based (e.g., Kirkpatrick & Locke, 1991), skill-based (Mumford et al., 2000), behavior-based (e.g., Avolio, 1999; Bass, 1998), and situational (e.g., Fiedler, 1967) leadership theories to develop profiles of successful and unsuccessful leaders. Such profiles could help researchers focus on
converging toward, rather than diverging from, understanding leadership processes and outcomes within the new and emerging organizational realities. With this level of integration and awareness of the context, we can begin to examine leadership as a total system, which includes the leader, followers, emerging context, and time in our assessments of leadership potential and effectiveness.
In sum, now where hierarchies are less clear, more leaders will likely emerge without position power (Huxam & Vangen, 2000). How leaders acquire, utilize, distribute, and replenish their influence and power is even more interesting today, given the seismic shift in organizations, the workforce, and the environmental context. How followers will play a role in the leadership dynamic may represent one of the most significant and important frontiers for research in the future. It is also likely that there will be far fewer followers and more leaders needing to figure out how to share leadership. Shared leadership also represents a new frontier for leadership researchers, especially shared leadership across time, distance, organizations, and cultures in the form of virtual teams.
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