When the pandemic began, these assumptions proved incorrect. People transitioned to so-called forced remote work at record speed (Parkatti, Husso, and Tammelin 2023). The shift triggered a wide range of emotions. A doctoral study involving municipal leaders identified over 30 different emotions experienced by leaders (Väätäinen 2024). Interviews with employees in the financial sector revealed feelings of anger, sadness, frustration, inadequacy, loneliness, and uncertainty—but also moments of belonging, enthusiasm, and success (Parkatti et al. 2023). Naturally, not everyone could work remotely, but tools such as phones, email, and instant messaging were widely used for both leadership and peer interaction.
Forced remote work was, in many ways, a transformation, and a natural part of crisis-era working. Subtle signals emerged, such as feelings of loneliness and the perception that leadership had vanished entirely. In such an emotional climate, one might expect leadership and supportive interaction to be crucial. The issue was not a lack of meetings, there were plenty, as is typical in times of crisis, but they focused heavily on reporting, leaving little room for genuine dialogue. Even virtual coffee breaks and informal chats, often awkwardly organised, failed to fill the gap.
Surprisingly, work continued to flow, and narratives began to emerge within work communities about remote work enhancing productivity and performance. This was supported by the Finnish workplace culture’s trust in structures and societal functioning.
Although work changed rapidly and dramatically, leadership practices did not (Väätäinen 2024) — and this trend continues. Yet public discussions on remote work rarely address this. The impact of good leadership practices and leadership competence on productivity is well established in research literature (Bender et al. 2016; Bloom et al. 2019), suggesting that leadership should continue to be examined through the lens of performance and productivity.
The importance of structures, such as clear purpose, goals, and organisational clarity, in remote leadership is recognised. But has this led to changes in leadership practices? Understanding the diversity of roles, goals, working methods, trust, and emotions is essential in leading people. Communicating shared interests, purpose, working methods, and outcomes is crucial. Organisations must be reimagined to support productivity in multi-location or remote work settings. Structural clarity helps establish effective people management practices and achieve results regardless of time or place. It also builds trust.
This so-called organisational trust is especially valuable when there is no time or space for interpersonal trust to develop (Väätäinen 2024). Recent public discourse suggests that trust has eroded. It is clear that leaders retain the right to direct work. Remote work is not an entitlement. Leaders have the unequivocal right to determine where, when, and how work is done. The real question is whether — and how — this right should be exercised.
Employees are currently being called back to the office due to concerns about declining productivity and efficiency, difficulties in monitoring performance, and challenges in providing support. Innovation is stalling, collaboration is lacking, and growth is faltering as people remain at home and use services less than before. But is it the remote work to blame for all of this?
The question is wrong. This blog uses the concept of remote work broadly, referring to all forms of work that are independent of time and place, where distance may occasionally arise between workers. Such work is not suitable for all tasks, and some organisations are simply not ready for it. Perhaps the 2020 assumption — that Finnish workplaces were not yet prepared for large-scale remote work — was not so far off.
Work communities must be built to function virtually, and leadership must evolve to support work organisation, performance monitoring, people management, and collaboration —even when distance is involved.
There is nothing inherently wrong with leaders exercising their right to direct work. If performance issues arise or an employee’s core duties change — due to work goals or personal circumstances — it is appropriate to revisit the rules and make adjustments to ensure smooth operations. This is part of leadership’s core function.
However, reducing employee autonomy is always a negative experience. It is a change that must be managed like any other. Change management is demanding interpersonal work, and coercion tends to reduce both performance and motivation. This, too, should be discussed and considered in decision-making.
Autonomy, competence, and relatedness predict performance (Cerasoli, Nicklin, and Ford 2014; Cerasoli, Nicklin, and Nassrelgrgawi 2016). These can be supported remotely. Choosing where to work may be part of an employee’s autonomy. It need not be unlimited, but a reasonable degree of freedom can enhance the experience of autonomy. Competence can be developed remotely, for example, by improving virtual leadership practices. Virtual leaders must be proactive (Väätäinen 2024). Passive “open-door” policies are ineffective. Leaders must reach out to employees regularly for one-to-one conversations focused on work-related matters.
Belonging can also be supported virtually. Encouraging collaboration, increasing small-group meetings, and reducing or eliminating meetings focused solely on reporting and updates can foster genuine participation. Monitoring and evaluation can also include jointly executed client projects. In virtual organisations, it is essential to consider how to monitor outcomes, not just work. Monitoring work is surveillance; it reduces autonomy and undermines motivation and performance. Monitoring results and addressing deviations, however, is a core leadership responsibility.
The real question is whether the core function of leadership is clear and whether remote-appropriate practices have been defined or left entirely undone. If the answer is yes to the latter, that’s the place to start.
Remote work is not a threat to performance or productivity. On the contrary, by developing organisational capabilities for time- and location-independent work, we can better utilise the necessary expertise, wherever it may be. Long-standing global virtual teams are excellent examples of this.
If the only solution to remote work challenges is returning to in-person work, without developing leadership, are we too readily abandoning the productivity-enhancing aspects of remote work, such as increased employee autonomy (Rattini 2023)?
Leadership’s core function includes building clarity, managing understanding of collaboration and innovation, communicating essential tasks, and addressing deviations when necessary. In expert work, internal motivation is key to performance. If this core function seems to fail remotely, then leadership must be developed to succeed in the future. Improving leadership through virtual tools is beneficial, even when work is done in the same location. Today, both work and collaboration are networked and multi-locational. In any case, we are leading and working at a distance.
Authors:
Henna Väätäinen, D.sc., M.Law, project manager, University of Oulu Kerttu Saalasti Institute
Katariina Yrjönkoski, D.sc., Director, University Consortium of Pori
Photo: Pexels, Mart Production
References:
Bender Nicholas Bloom David Card John Van Reenen Stefanie Wolter, Stefan, von Wachter, Edward Lazear, Rick Hanushek, Pat Kline, Steve Machin, Raffaella Sadun, Katheryn Shaw, Miriam Krueger, Pedro Castro, Stephen Dorgan, Stefan Bender, Nicholas Bloom, David Card, John Van Reenen, and Stefanie Wolter. 2016. “Management Practices, Workforce Selection and Productivity.” Journal of Labor Economics 36:371–409. http://www.nber.org/papers/w22101.
Bloom, Nicholas, Erik Brynjolfsson, Lucia Foster, Ron Jarmin, Megha Patnaik, Itay Saporta-Eksten, and John Van Reenen. 2019. “What Drives Differences in Management Practices?” American Economic Review 109(5):1648–83.
Cerasoli, Christopher P., Jessica M. Nicklin, and Michael T. Ford. 2014. “Intrinsic Motivation and Extrinsic Incentives Jointly Predict Performance: A 40-Year Meta-Analysis.” Psychological Bulletin 140(4):980–1008. doi:10.1037/a0035661.
Cerasoli, Christopher P., Jessica M. Nicklin, and Alexander S. Nassrelgrgawi. 2016. “Performance, Incentives, and Needs for Autonomy, Competence, and Relatedness: A Meta-Analysis.” Motivation and Emotion 40(6):781–813. doi:10.1007/s11031-016-9578-2.
Parkatti, Anne, Marita Husso, and Mia Tammelin. 2023. “Ammatillinen Toimijuus Ja Tunteet Pakotetussa Etätyössä.” Focus Localis (3):23–39.
Rattini, Veronica. 2023. “Worker Autonomy and Performance: Evidence from a Real-Effort Experiment.” Journal of Economics and Management Strategy 32(2):300–327.
Väätäinen, Henna. 2024. Virtuaalinen Johtaminen Paradoksien Syleilyssä: Sosiaalista Pääomaa Ja Oman Äänen Käyttöä Tukeva Johtaminen Kunnissa. Rovaniemi: Acta electronica Universitatis Lapponiensis 372.
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