Leadership during Crisis; Using Change Role Reversal Theory: A Study from Service Sector of Pakistan

In the volatile economic situation, there is a growing interest in Change Role Reversal, due to COVID-19 pandemic that would lead to successful leader-follower relationship. Change role reversal theory become so popular during the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses have opposed the systemic shock triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. The key variables of change role reversal are digitalization, employee empowerment, a shift in responsibility, perceived organizational support taken as independent variables that would have a positive impact on the leader-follower relationship and firm performance mediate the relationship between change role reversal and leader-follower relationship. This study follows the quantitative research approach and the philosophy of research is positivism and the research approach is deductive in which hypothesis is generated from the existing theories. This method was used because data about the variables could be collected once at a given time and this research is explanatory. The study unit of analysis had been individual. The research was performed using a descriptive cross-sectional survey method. The data for this study are obtained from the Services industry of Pakistan and the sample is the managerial employees that have interaction with their leaders. Total 450 close-ended questionnaires were distributed to the organizations online and out of which only 290 questionnaires were adopted for analysis. Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) and SMART PLS3 are used to check the hypothesis. This study revealed that change role reversal having positive relationship with leader follower relationship and firm performance strongly mediate with the relationship between change role reversal and leader follower relationship. This study offers also limitation and future direction in order to contribute in literature in future.