Successful teleworking: The role of leadership and the relationship with emotional exhaustion

By combining the Job Demands-Resources Model and the Self-Determination Theory, this research postulates a theoretical model that considers the leader–member exchange, a type of positive leadership, as a resource that would be able to promote the feeling of effectiveness in telecommuting, by creating a motivational process capable of inducing a reduction in ill-being at work, such as job exhaustion. The results from regression analyses with mediation on a sample of 352 executives teleworking during the Covid-19 health emergency show that a positive leader–member exchange promotes the perception of efficiency in teleworking which contributes to reducing job exhaustion. Considering that after the health crisis, remote working has become a practice increasingly used by many companies, especially in a hybrid way, these results encourage to question and develop the potential of positive leadership in supporting teleworkers to improve their sense of effectiveness and promote their well-being during remote work.