Digital distributive leadership in the time of the Covid-19 pandemic - New light on the transition from physical workplaces to digital spaces in Swedish eldercare

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has had a huge effect on working life in many welfare sectors. An ongoing qualitative study on distributed leadership work in Swedish eldercare has highlighted the premises of needs assessment during the pandemic. This article applies the concepts of distributed leadership, space and temporality to shed new light on the transition from physical workplaces to digital spaces. The article stresses the importance of co-working, co-responsibility and close interaction between leaders and employees, and argues that the ongoing pandemic can help us understand how the digital transition is changing the premises for leadership work in eldercare needs assessments. The empirical material was derived from several organisational levels of needs assessment and both individual interviews and participant observations were conducted. The results confirm how managerial work is in a state of transition that changes the interaction between managers and the needs assessors. Both the challenges and the importance of interaction are enhanced in the digital space.