Many business leaders and employees face challenges with adapting and adjusting to digital management and working environments. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented crisis affecting businesses. Due to extensive safety measures, employees and employers shifted to working remotely to keep businesses running. With scarce literature on diverse management during the pandemic era, the study's main objective is to report on effective digital leadership, comparing the virtual working settings of the Philippines and Finland brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. The topic contributes to the literature on the fast-paced disruption of leadership in a digital working environment.

The research methods of the cross-cultural study are semi-structured interviews and qualitative data analysis. The theoretical framework is fulfilled by reading literature on leadership, possible cultural clashes, digitalization, and gathering information from digital sources such as digital articles. A total of eight people from various business fields, four leaders from Finland and four from the Philippines, were interviewed to compare the developing countries’ perspectives regarding the digitalization of work. Moreover, a survey from both countries (160 answers) was collected to explore the employees’ perspectives on the effectiveness of leadership mediated by cultural differences and organizational cohesive-ness.

The research is specifically interesting as the sudden switch to digital settings is accompanied by challenges for workers. The findings need to be validated in Finland and the Philip-pines. Additional research should be integrated internationally to understand the similarities and differences or if specific generalizations can be made.