LEADERSHIP STYLES IN SYNCHRONOUS AND ASYNCHRONOUS VIRTUAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

ABSTRACT

A comparison of the effects of transactional and transformational leadership in synchronous and a synchronous online teamwork was conducted. In the study, groups of four participants interacted in online text chat and online text forum in problem solving tasks. The groups were leaded by a confederate who acted as a transactional or a transformational leader. Satisfaction in the interactions and participations communicative styles were assessed. Results indicated that transformational leadership is more satisfying and cognitive and metacognitive style oriented than transactional leadership that is more participative style oriented.

Keywords: transactional leadership, transformational leadership, online teamwork, satisfaction, cognitive style

With the advent of new media technologies and the recent advances in networking environments and telecommunications, many researchers have improved their study to the proliferations of teams that do not work face-to-face, but interact over a computer-mediated-communication network.

One of the most important characteristics of groups that discuss in virtual and direct interactions is leadership. In the last twenty years research has increasingly focused on leadership in work groups. The growing amount of research on interaction in face-to-face contexts does not correspond to a similar increase in research on groups interacting with computer-mediated-communication.