Change of leaders' role expectations due to the shift to e-leadership

Especially in today’s business world, change occurs every day. Organizations and leaders need to accept this changing environment and conditions and adapt to it in order to be competitive. At the beginning of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has changed everything and forced all organizations into a digital working model. Everyone had to change their way of working and collaboration from one day to another. Especially associates and leaders with no experience who were forced into these digital models were overwhelmed, stressed and scared. Therefore, the goal of the thesis is to analyze how leaders with no experience in leading digital teams have mastered this time and maybe have changed their tasks, roles and role expectations to be a successful leader. The results show that the role expectations of a leader have shifted into a different focus to a more coaching behavior. The importance lies in relationship building and well-being of the associates. Therefore, the execution of the role has changed and new tasks arose.