Let’s stay in touch: Frequency (but not mode) of interaction between leaders and followers predicts better leadership outcomes

Abstract

Successful leadership requires leaders to make their followers aware of expectations regarding the goals to achieve, norms to follow, and task responsibilities to take over. This awareness is often achieved through leader-follower communication. In times of economic globalization and digitalization, however, leader-follower communication has become both more digitalized (virtual, rather than face-to-face) and less frequent, making successful leader-follower-communication more challenging. The current research tested in four studies (three preregistered) whether digitalization and frequency of interaction predict task-related leadership success. In one cross-sectional (Study 1, N = 200), one longitudinal (Study 2, N = 305), and one quasi-experimental study (Study 3, N = 178), as predicted, a higher frequency (but not a lower level of digitalization) of leader-follower interactions predicted better task-related leadership outcomes (i.e., stronger goal clarity, norm clarity, and task responsibility among followers). Via mediation and a causal chain approach, Study 3 and Study 4 (N = 261) further targeted the mechanism; results showed that the relationship between (higher) interaction frequency and these outcomes is due to followers perceiving more opportunities to share work-related information with the leaders. These results improve our understanding of contextual factors contributing to leadership success in collaborations across hierarchies. They highlight that it is not the digitalization but rather the frequency of interacting with their leader that predicts whether followers gain clarity about the relevant goals and norms to follow and the task responsibilities to assume.