Abstract:

This article examines the role of transformational leadership in establishing trust through empowering remote subordinates. It inspects the challenges faced by managers and employees during the pandemic lockdown and suggests that transformational leaders increase their subordinates’ organizational trust through empowering them. At the end, this article provides employers with some techniques useful in engaging and empowering remote employees by creating an atmosphere of trust, which will simplify the adaptability to the unanticipated change in the business environment. This article, therefore, relies on several interrelated concepts: Leadership, Employee Engagement, Employee Empowerment, Trust, and Safety. Trust, a crucial factor in the business environment, defines the basis of the leader-subordinate relationship. The more trustful this relationship is, the more effective the organizational targets are met. Thus, an effective leader should seek ways to institute a confident work environment. One of these ways is to keep subordinates engaged through empowering them. Empowering subordinates had gained specific attention during the current lockdown. It provides lower level management the authority to take decisions without bringing them up to the upper level management. This study was needed to clarify the leader’s role in establishing engagement among remote employees. The selected approach to this study was a qualitative based on interview questions to ten employees in a pharmaceutical company. They were asked about the challenges they had faced during the lockdown referring to technological issues, work hours, relationship with leaders and with colleagues, motivation, organizational trust, team collaboration, and social distancing.