Leadership behaviors that reduce psychological distance and increase adaptive coping and performance

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of employees have found themselves working from home, physically separated from their leaders and work teams. Drawing from construal level and conservation of resources theories, our study focused on the psychological distance employees experience from their manager as a key explanatory mechanism for employee coping and task performance during the pandemic. We specifically examined the role of three leadership behaviors (initiating structure, consideration, and vision communication) on employees’ perceptions of psychological distance from their manager and the subsequent effects on employee task, emotion, and avoidance coping and task performance. Using data from a four-wave time-lagged online study of remotely working participants (N = 343) conducted in April-May 2020, we found that consideration and vision communication reduced employees’ perceptions of psychological distance from their manager, while psychological distance decreased task coping. Support for a serial mediation model was also found, with consideration and vision communication positively and indirectly influencing task performance via psychological distance and then via task coping. Results from our study provide insights into how leaders can stay psychologically close to their employees despite their physical separation and the implications of psychological distance from the leader for employees’ coping responses and performance.