Charisma in the gig economy: The impact of digital leadership and communication channels on performance

Remote and gig work is prevalent in today’s labor market and calls for skilled digital leaders. Signaling charisma using charismatic-leadership-tactics (CLTs) to increase follower performance works in face-to-face communication. However, technology-mediated communication reduces the signaling opportunities, thereby calling the effectiveness of charismatic signaling into question. In Study 1, I conducted a large field experiment investigating the impact of charismatic signaling (neutral or charisma) and the chosen communication channel (text, audio, video), on follower performance in the gig economy. Video messages led to lower output than text or audio communication in the neutral set-up. In contrast, the output was not significantly different between the communication channels in the charisma set-ups. The data revealed a positive interaction between video communication and CLT presence. The charismatic video led to higher output than the neutral video indicating that leaders need to deliver a coherent picture, especially when using the video channel. In Study 2, I investigated if traditional questionnaires (MLQ) measuring perceived charisma and unrelated participants’ forecasts predict Study 1′s outcomes. Although CLT presence led to higher scores in perceived charisma, follower performance was not predicted by the scores. Thus, the MLQ is not an appropriate instrument for predicting follower behavior.