Self-leadership in the context of part-time teleworking

Employees who work periodically in both a traditional office and home office (part-time teleworkers) face opportunities and risks related to both working locations. As self-leadership might play a crucial role in this context, we examined within-person variations in self-leadership (self-reward, self-punishment, self-cueing, self-goal setting, imagining successful performance, and evaluation of beliefs and assumptions) on home days and office days. In a typical workweek, 195 part-time teleworkers filled out daily surveys (729 days), and we examined the relationship between working location (office and home) and self-leading behavior as well as the mediating role of autonomy. Finally, we investigated whether self-leading behavior relates to ego depletion and work satisfaction at the end of the working day. Multilevel analyses revealed that part-time teleworkers reported higher use of self-reward, self-goal setting, and visualization of successful performance on home days than on office days. The association between working location and self-reward, self-goal setting, visualization of successful performance, and evaluation of beliefs and assumptions was mediated by autonomy. There were no indirect effects of working location on ego depletion through self-leadership. However, we found that on home days, part-time teleworkers were more satisfied with their job at the end of the workday through self-goal setting.