Digitization has changed a lot in the area of leadership and relationships. The aim of the study is thus to examine how digitalization has changed the leadership and the relationship with the employees of municipal managers. Municipal managers constitute a specific group andt herefore became an interesting phenomenon. In the study, 18 municipal managers were interviewed, through semi-structured digital interviews. The sample for the study is municipal managers who are active in peripheral municipalities to Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. The results show that digitization has affected leadership in different ways. If there are differences in the leader-member exchange, it is difficult to decipher, however, it has been possible to discern that there are differences in how the exchange takes place.

The results show that digital meetings have given a feeling of one-way communication, the dialogue disappears, which is also linked to the leader-member exchange. The digital changeover has had different impressions on the respondents, but the majority have testified that the changeover worked surprisingly well. The leadership style has become more trust-based and many of the respondent’s book significantly more reconciliation meetings with their employees. The results of the interviews show that there are various challenges in the leadership of the respondents, much depending on personality traits. If there has been a shift in focus between the leader and the employee, the result has shown that it is shared. In the leadermember exchange perspective, communication and accessibility have been two centralconcepts.