ADAPTING AGENTIC LEADERSHIP FOR REMOTE WORK: PERSPECTIVES OF HR MANAGERS IN PAKISTANI SMES

Abstract

Today's widespread shift towards remote and hybrid work has influenced the ways of working in small and medium-sized enterprises and especially in developing economies, where technology and organizational means are limited. This study aims to find how Human Resource managers of Pakistani SMEs implement principles of agentic leadership in managing remote teams. The qualitative research design was applied and the semi-structured interview method was used for the six HR managers from the information technology, services and manufacturing SMEs. Participants' professional experience ranged from 5 to 10 years. The interview data was transcribed, coded and analyzed thematically, using NVivo software. Eight themes emerged: technical infrastructure challenges, communication challenges, team management and trust building, team cohesion and employee engagement, use of digital tools, SME-specific constraints, collaboration across time zones and adaptation of agentic leadership. The results indicate that all of these factors—unstable internet connection, power outages, low digital literacy, lack of budget, inappropriate home environment and communication gaps—affect the management of remote working teams. To meet this challenge, HR managers resort to Zoom, Microsoft Teams, WhatsApp, Trello, shared calendars, ERP systems and centralized information repositories to maintain the level of coordination. At the same time, managers are more focused on autonomy, trust, transparency, empowerment and outcome measures, but still provide some structured guidance to ensure accountability. It is concluded that the agentic leadership in Pakistani SMEs is in a hybrid model which entails freedom of employees, well-defined expectations, digital coordination, and contextual control. The findings will help to continue the dialogue about remote leadership and offer a qualitative perspective within resource-poor and culturally hierarchical SME settings.