Strategic leadership at the limits of care: a discursive sensemaking perspective on virtual presenteeism in remote work

Purpose This study examines how managers construct and communicate understandings of illness, availability, responsibility and recovery. Drawing on discursive leadership and organizational sensemaking, it conceptualizes leadership as a process of meaning construction and explores how this process shapes the emergence of virtual presenteeism as a workplace norm. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts a qualitative, discourse-informed interpretive design. Open-ended survey data were collected from 88 managers in the Turkish private sector. The analysis combines reflexive thematic analysis with interpretive discourse analysis, focusing on both linguistic patterns and the broader discourses of professionalism and remote work. The analysis examines how managers use language to frame care, performance, responsibility, and recovery, and how these framings shape expectations regarding employee availability. Findings Three leadership vocabularies are identified: Continuity and Reliability, Individual Judgment and Self-Responsibility, and Care and Legitimated Withdrawal. These vocabularies show how managers interpret digital cues, construct narratives of availability, and normalize virtual presenteeism through framing, normalization, and identity regulation. Across these vocabularies, managers establish different expectations regarding availability, responsibility, and recovery, shaping how virtual presenteeism becomes normalized or challenged. Practical implications Leaders can reduce implicit attendance pressure by adjusting how they talk about availability and recovery. Reframing everyday communication can help make rest legitimate rather than exceptional. At the organizational level, embedding language that supports recovery into leadership routines and internal communication can strengthen resilience without reinforcing constant availability. Originality/value This study links virtual presenteeism to discursive leadership by showing how leadership language shapes norms of availability. It reframes compassion as a practical resource enacted through communication and demonstrates that leadership vocabularies actively construct, rather than simply reflect, expectations around work and recovery in remote contexts.