How to take employees on the digital transformation journey: An experimental study on complementary leadership behaviors in managing organizational change

Digital transformation (DT) initiatives are often not successful. Research underlines leadership as a key to transformation success; however, studies have not systematically examined the impact of leaders on organizational change, particularly concerning organizations’ DT. To fill this research gap, we conducted an experimental study with 815 participants to analyze the effectiveness of complementary leadership behaviors that are relevant in the digital age: task-oriented (more precisely, digital transformation–oriented) and people-oriented leadership behaviors, and in particular their interaction. Surprisingly and in contrast to prior studies, the results show that the combination of complementary leadership behaviors did not lead to the highest (lowest) level of employees’ desirable (undesirable) affective, cognitive, and behavioral change responses. This study reveals that organizations are well-advised not to disregard people orientation when going digital as this leadership behavior buffers the potential downsides of digital transformation–oriented leadership behavior, which is mandatory to stay competitive in the digital era.