An Evaluation of How Educators in Virtual Teams Perceive Charismatic Leadership During the COVID-19 Crisis

Leadership constituted a topic of high interest for researchers and practitioners alike for years. Numerous studies have focused on leadership styles, particularly charismatic leadership, as an antecedent to organizational achievements. However, most researchers neglected to consider the followers' perception of their leader's performance. Understanding and accommodating the needs of the followers is essential to the leader's success. The current study investigates the influence of charismatic leaders on dispersed teams in non-vocational educational institutions in Lebanon. This quantitative study utilized two structured questionnaires to investigate the charismatic leadership during the COVID-19 crisis from the perspective of educators who work in virtual teams. Five hypotheses on the effect of crisis-bound charismatic leadership on distant educational teams were tested. The relation between the number of years of experience and charisma was not explored since the majority of respondents fell in the category of five years or more at the institution. A total of seventy-seven respondents completed the survey online. Statistical analysis, using the software SPSS-23, showed that neither gender nor level of education affected the followers' perception of charismatic leadership during crises. Nonetheless, the study findings showed a strong positive correlation between charismatic leadership and the ability to lead in a crisis, concluding that charismatic leaders emerge in times of stress. (C)CIKD Publishing