Home office, telework or work from home - these terms have become an integral part of everyday work. Especially in times of the COVID-19 pandemic, these forms of work play an important role in minimizing the risk of infection and still maintaining work. However, home office does not only have positive consequences, many employees also perceive disadvantages, such as reduced (personal) contact.

To find out how the assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of telework changed during the COVID-19 pandemic, 331 employees (average age 35 years, 27% male) in Germany were interviewed. Some of the participants completed the survey before the restrictions in March 2020 and some after extensive restrictions (such as wearing mouth and nose covering, curfews) were introduced.

A summary of the results can be found here.

Conclusion: The identification with the work team, i.e., the psychological attachment to other colleagues, is important - especially for colleagues in the home office and especially when this form of work cannot necessarily be chosen voluntarily (as is partly the case during the COVID-19 pandemic, for example).

The results show that in the current situation, especially those reporting a low level of identification with their work team perceive more disadvantages of working from home the more they work from home compared to those who feel closely connected to their colleagues, i.e., report a high level of team identification.

Interested in supporting our research? We are conducting another survey - anyone can participate, whether they work at home or not.

Here is the link to the English survey.

Here is the link to the German survey.

Prof. Dr. Bruce Avolio, regarded as one of the world’s leading experts in the field of leadership, has visited the Center for Leadership and Behavior in Organizations (CLBO) in February 2020. He is one of the most cited researchers in industrial and organizational psychology. He is best known for his work on transformational leadership, but has also done research on other topics. During his stay, he held a lecture for scientists and practitioners titled “Understanding the First Principle for Successful Organizational Transformation: Change Occurs One Person at a Time”. In the lecture, he explained principles of organizational change and applied them to actual examples of real life organizations. This talk was well visited by many interested people who asked questions and discussed various topics with him. Bruce Avolio also took part in a CLBO Small Group Meeting in which he gave another talk on “Authentic Leadership, Employee Voice and Organizational Sustainability”. In addition, he had many personal meetings with PhD students, research associates and professors to discuss and give feedback on current research projects.  

Understanding the First Principle for

Successful Organizational Transformation:

Change Occurs One Person at a Time

Prof. Bruce J. Avolio

The CLBO Leadership Lectures

Tuesday, 18th February 2020,

at Goethe University Frankfurt, Campus Westend, Lecture Hall (Hörsaal) HZ 10, 18.30h – 20.00h,

followed by a reception

To the degree the horizon for when the leaders of an organization perceive the need for their organization to change is longer then the time horizon dictated by their competitors, the probability of being able to change and sustain success is substantially reduced. It is therefore incumbent upon organizational leaders to match the evolution of change occurring in their external markets by promoting a continuous readiness for transformation. We begin our examination of organizational transformation with an assumption that all organizational leaders must remain vigilant to the ongoing need to evolve and transform, not when platforms are burning, but when they are just contemplating how to create those platforms. We also make a distinction between change efforts and transformation, with the latter representing fundamental change in how organizational members identify with and construe their roles in achieving and sustaining success in their organization. The ultimate goal for this presentation is to demonstrate the first principle of organizational transformation. Specifically, all employees must fundamentally alter how they each conceive of their organization, in order for their organization to achieve and sustain a successful transformation. We examined in a series of studies the 4 states that organizations navigate through to transform, and the key mechanisms comprising those states that promote a successful organizational transformation. Specific examples of how leaders have successfully navigated through change to transform their organization will be discussed and applied to the challenges facing attendee’s organizations.

Prof. Bruce J. Avolio was has published 12 books and over 150 articles on leadership and related areas. In 2018, Bruce was recognized as being among the top 70 most highly cited researchers in the United States in Economics and Business, and among the top 3,000 across all sciences around the globe (Thompson Reuters). He was listed this past year at the #18th spot on the all time most highly cited industrial and organizational psychology researchers over the last 100 years.

This event is organized by the Center for Leadership and Behavior in Organization in the new annual Leadership Lectures series.

Participation in the event and following reception is free of charge. For registration, please send an email to a.kaluza@clbo-frankfurt.org. Registration deadline is February 7th, 2020.

On November 6 & 7, 2019 the second annual meeting of the Global Leadership Center Roundtable took place at Washington University in St. Louis (MO). Stuart Bunderson and Marcianne Gagliardi from the Bauer Leadership Center at Olin Business School were the organizers of this year’s meeting that brought together the following participants:

• Janka Stoker and Harry Garretsen from the leadership center In the LEAD at the University of Groningen

• Ben Kuipers from the Leiden Leadership Centre

• Christian Bøtcher Jacobsen from the Crown Prince Frederik Center for Public Leadership at the University of Aarhus

• Eva Bracht and Michael Kosfeld from the Center for Leadership and Behavior in Organizations (CLBO) at Goethe University Frankfurt

• Vyla Rollins from the Leadership Institute at London Business School

• Stuart Bunderson and Marcianne Gagliardi from the Bauer Leadership Center at Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis

The Global Leadership Center Roundtable is a new initiative that started with the first meeting at the University of Groningen last year. Its objective is to foster interaction between research-driven leadership centers in the world and benefit from the exchange of experiences and best practices at the different centers. This year – besides the discussion of exciting new research – the focus was on different “theories and models of leadership” that are used at the different centers. The next meeting is going to take place in November 2020 at the Crown Prince Frederik Center for Public Leadership in Aarhus.

From left to right: J. Stoker, H. Garretsen, S. Bunderson, B. Kuipers, M. Kosfeld, E. Bracht, V. Rollins, C. Jacobsen

A new study explores the trustworthiness of applicants to the German police force. Here you can find a report about the article.

Nicht nur in der Forschung, sondern auch in der Praxis rückte die Führungskräftegesundheit vermehrt in den Fokus. In einer kürzlich veröffentlichten Meta-Analyse haben Antonia Kaluza und Rolf van Dick von der Goethe Universität Frankfurt zusammen mit Wissenschaftlerinnen der Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel und der Universität Koblenz-Landau die bisherigen Erkenntnisse dieses noch recht jungen Forschungsfeldes theoretisch und empirisch zusammengefasst. In einem Interview im Uni-Report beantwortet Antonia Kaluza Fragen zu der Studie. Das Interview finden Sie hier.

Antonia J. Kaluza, Diana Boer, Claudia Buengeler & Rolf van Dick (2019). Leadership behaviour and leader self-reported well-being: A review, integration and meta-analytic examination, Work & Stress. DOI: 10.1080/02678373.2019.1617369