Ashley Baum Case Study_FINAL

How a Virtual Leader Can Instill an Element of Trust on a Global Virtual Team


Ashley Baum

Northeastern University

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Case Study

Introduction

As the business world becomes more global, companies will look to create virtual

teams and as such, create virtual leaders. While this can save the company money, it

could hurt their productivity if they don’t train their leaders to lead virtual teams, as it did

with one virtual team at XYZ Corporation. In creating this new, US-based virtual team,

the company automatically thought that there would be unconditional trust and the team

members and leaders would be able to work well together, but this was not the case.

This was a problem on this team because as a virtual leader, you need to foster an

environment where associates can grow to trust one another, while coaching and

developing each member to further their own personal career goals, but also not losing

sight of the team’s bigger picture. If a leader isn’t able to do this, it could create tension,

friction, and an air of distrust and competition which ultimately could lead to people

leaving the team and, in some cases, the firm.

Background

XYZ Corporation is a professional services firm specializing in tax, assurance,

and consulting services both in the United States and around the world. Through

various acquisitions and external hires, the company established a more robust

consulting practice in 2011. By doing this, the business required new talent from top

undergraduate and MBA schools to grow their practices in industries such as financial

services, healthcare, government, and consumer products, among others. XYZ

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Corporation’s consulting practice has grown exponentially over the last four years and

while this is great for the firm, it’s meant that the campus hiring goals have increased

significantly without adding anymore team members. Because of this, team morale has

decreased steadily over the years because there’s been no support from not only the

team’s leaders, but also the firm’s leaders, causing there to be distrust of leadership.

Story

In the winter of 2010, XYZ Corporation acquired ABC Group and brought over

their entire campus recruiting team. The new campus recruiting leader, Lisa, was told

that her new team would be comprised of people from all over the country. Despite the

fact that her former team was based in Chicago, she was now the leader of a newly

formed virtual team as part of a brand new campus recruiting initiative. In the summer

of 2011, XYZ Corporation bought another small consulting firm called DEF Consulting

and again brought over the whole campus recruiting team, which was based in Boston.

Now Lisa was the virtual leader of a not only her old team, but now needed to absorb,

train, and trust a whole new team. With some external hiring, the campus recruiting

team grew fifteen people.

Over the first 2 years, the team saw a high rate of turnover, with approximately

eight people leaving. On a virtual team, that rarely met, the remaining team members

had to work fast to build up the same amount of trust with the new people brought in,

resulting in the team growing to 20 people. While the new people were very capable,

some found it hard to work with them on projects as they had never formally met face to

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face. Instead of rectifying this situation, Lisa and the other team leaders hired more

people while assigning more work onto people’s already overloaded plate with the ever

increasing campus hiring goals, which fostered a competitive team environment. Over

the last 2 years, more people have left the team, including one of its leaders, while

others, who have recently joined the team, have quickly been promoted. With all this

turnover, associates don’t trust one another and worst of all, they don’t trust leadership.

Conclusion

In the following case analysis, we’ll see how a virtual leader’s inability to develop

a trusting work environment can have a negative effect on the team’s cohesion and

productivity as well as how they view their leader’s leadership approach in addition to

the team’s overall coaching style. By the end of this case analysis, the hope is to

provide some solutions on how to build trusting relationships that will ultimately improve

team work, leadership, and coaching.

Case Analysis

Case Synopsis

More and more companies are looking for ways to save money and one way to

do that is to cut travel costs. By doing this, they create virtual teams with team

members from across the US and the world, but by doing this, they don’t always

prepare the team’s leader on effective ways to lead a virtual team. One way virtual

leaders can establish effective and productive virtual teams is by fostering a trusting

work place. Trust is fundamental to any team environment, but it’s especially important

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on a virtual team. By examining how a team develops trust over a number of years and

conducting various interviews with team members and leaders, the reader will be

observe how vital trust is to a team’s productivity, its leader’s ability to lead, and the

overall team’s capability to coach up one another.

Case Methodology

For this case study, I used interviews and observations of my current team, and

research to conduct my analysis. The interviews I conducted were with various team

members ranging in levels (associates, managers, and directors) and years of

experience on my team (six months to four years). I conducted interviews with team

members with questions based on the research I found. When researching for my case

analysis, I wanted to find articles that centered on trust and how it can be built on teams

as that was the basis for the interview questions I asked my team members. There are

limitations to my analysis. One of the main limitations is that my team is virtual so the

observations that I made were done virtually and based on the few times a year we

were all together as a team.

Team Work and Trust

Working in a team setting is an integral part of the business world. Employees

must be able to work together productively in order for the company to be effective.

While this is true of all teams, this is especially true for virtual teams. Virtual teams

need to work effectively in the absence of actual face-to-face communication while

maintaining productivity.

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One way for virtual teams to work effectively is to build trust amongst members,

but this is easier said than done. As Darleen DeRosa, et.al, stated in “Trust and

Leadership in Virtual Teamwork”, that while technologies might help to improve

collaboration and “ultimately enhance team performance, it is important for virtual team

members to develop strong interpersonal dynamics and support mechanisms” as

technology can only do so much (p. 224). Because virtual teams need to rely on

technology to build trust, they need to be able to be highly productive and trust that their

colleagues are working effectively on their own.

In late 2010, XYZ Corporation put together a virtual campus recruiting team for

their Advisory consulting practice. This was a new team comprised of employees from

various acquisitions as well as some external hires from all over the country. The team

had to rely on one another very quickly without much time to develop trust. In order for

the whole team to meet and get to know one another, everyone went to Chicago for a

live meeting. This allowed everyone to develop their relationships with each other

further. The second and third years saw people come and go, bringing new

personalities to the mix, which caused friction, tension, and competition amongst the

members. The team is currently in its fourth year and more team members have left

due to poor team chemistry and distrust.

In interviews with various associates and managers, they all agreed that trust is

absolutely necessary on a virtual team. They went on to say that on a virtual team, if

you can’t trust your team members to work independently on projects, then your team

won’t function properly. They all also believed that in order to build trust, you need to

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build some type of rapport with the people you’re working with, both personally and

professionally. While everyone interviewed agreed trust is needed, they disagree on

whether the team has complete trust in one another. Some of the newer people on the

team feel that they can trust everyone equally and would have no qualms working on a

project with others on the team. Some of the other team members, who have been on

the team longer, weren’t so optimistic. While these members trusted some people

implicitly, they felt that others were deceitful and put their own needs and goals above

those of the project or the team. This type of behavior breeds resentment and

competition, which has brought down team morale and caused distrust. One thing

underlying this issue is how the team’s leaders viewed how the team works together.

Some team members feel like Lisa and Brianne, a senior manager on the team, have

created an atmosphere where they take more care in developing those members that sit

in Chicago with them, while dismissing their colleagues who sit in different locations that

they rarely travel to. Another issue is that the leaders tend to be more focused on

results or how fast the team can get to their goals rather than the well-being of its

members. While Lisa and Brianne don’t micromanage, they also don’t get deep into the

heart of the issues, only what’s on the surface. As Darleen DeRosa, et.al stated “the

importance of reciprocal trust, coupled with the face that team leaders have less FTF

[face-to-face] contact and direct supervision over team members, poses new challenges

to interpersonal processes such as control and trust, as well as to assumption regarding

their importance” (“Trust and Leadership in Virtual Teamwork”, p. 224). It’s not enough

for team members to trust each other, but they also need to trust that their leaders

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actually care about them not just workers, but as people as well. This is especially true

on a virtual team where members don’t have the same interaction with their bosses as

they would if they all sat together in the same office. While trust is a major issue on any

team, face-to-face or virtual, it’s something that can be developed.

Working on a virtual team is not easy. You must be able to develop relationships

with people quickly and trust that they are doing the work that’s been asked of them.

Leaders also must trust that their subordinates are able to work independently to

accomplish the goals set forth at the beginning of the year or during the project and be

able to motivate them to continue the effectiveness of the team as a whole. While

leading a team isn’t easy, leading a virtual team is difficult if the leaders aren’t aware of

the differences.

Transformational Leadership and Trust

Leading a team, especially a virtual team, is not an easy task. As a leader, you

need to inspire and motivate your subordinates to get them to be their best self and be

productive. When you’re a virtual team leader, it’s harder to do this as you’re leading

from afar and it takes more effort to inspire and not everyone is capable of doing this.

To inspire someone is to transform them into their best self and that’s exactly

what transformational leadership aims to do. Transformational leadership, as described

by Peter Northouse in his book “Leadership: Theory and Practice”, is a “process that

changes and transforms people. It is concerned with emotions, values, ethics,

standards, and long-term goals. It includes assessing followers’ motives, satisfying their

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needs, and treating them as full human beings” (p. 185). This type of leadership

influences followers to go above and beyond what is expected of them by “(a) raising

followers’ levels of consciousness about the importance and value of specified and

idealized goals, (b) getting followers to transcend their own self-interest for the sake of

the team or organization, and (c) moving followers to address higher-level needs”

(Northouse, p.190). These types of leaders are charismatic, engaging, and the team

atmosphere reflects that so that all members are energized and enthusiastic to go to

work every day and be their best selves. While being a transformational leader in an

office environment is ideal, the business world is moving to a virtual model and trying to

be a transformational leader on a virtual team is a tall task.

Virtual leaders don’t have the luxury of seeing their subordinates on a daily or

even monthly basis so getting them to buy into the vision of the team and inspiring them

is a challenge. As stated in the article “Transformational leadership in context”,

Radostina Purvanova and Joyce Bono said that due to the lack of visual and auditory

cues, “transformational behaviors that are emotional in nature may occur less frequently

in virtual teams. Both charisma (idealized influence) and inspirational motivation

employ nonverbal and paraverbal cures; hence is may be hard to display and perceive

these transformational behaviors in electronically-mediated communication settings”

(p.344). They go on say that it takes “at least four times longer to type than to speak.

Hence, leaders may engage in less intellectual stimulation, because challenging

employees to re-think their assumptions and engaging employees in the decision-

making process may prove too difficult and time-consuming in virtual environments” (p.

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344-345). If employees can’t physically see their leader’s body language or hear how

excited they are about a project or an accomplishment, they aren’t going to be as

inspired or motivated because they aren’t able to gauge the visual and auditory cues

needed to be excited.

This is the case on the virtual campus recruiting team at XYZ Corporation. In

interviews with various associates and managers, most mentioned that they wished

there was more communication between Lisa, Brianne, and the rest of the team. They

felt that with more transparency, they would be more aware of the decisions that were

being made that would affect them. The team members also wished that Lisa and

Brianne would take more of an interest in them personally. This goes back to trusting

the people you work with and developing real relationships so each person feels like

they are needed. This is something that these leaders don’t always do. When asked

what lesson they took away from their mentors, Lisa talked about building relationships

and how you need to surround yourself with people who are subject matter experts

because leaders can’t be experts in everything. While this is great in theory, Lisa and

Brianne tend to go to the same people for the same types of projects instead of bringing

in other people to help them grow, which causes members to be distrustful of not only

the leaders, but also in their own abilities. Both Lisa and Brianne talked about trusting

their members to do their jobs and not micromanaging, but the issue with this team is

that sometimes the leaders are too hands off and aren’t available for questions or

brainstorming so when it comes time for the end of the project and something has gone

wrong, the members are usually criticized for their actions. In order for members to

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trust their in abilities, they need to know that their leaders have faith in their abilities as

well and that they are there for any questions, no matter how simple.

Being a good leader means that you need to inspire your subordinates, not just

to be productive for the team, but the individual themselves. In addition to inspiring and

motivating team members, a leader needs to also coach their members.

Coaching Relationships and Trust

While team work and leadership are key components on a virtual team, coaching

up team members is almost more important. In addition to inspiring and motivating

them, virtual leaders must also be able to help them develop and grow not just for the

sake of the team, but also for the individual member.

Coaching is a fundamental part of leading a team. If a leader wants their

company to grow, they need to be able to help their members reach for their potential

and grow within themselves. John H. Zenger and Kathleen Stinnent define coaching as

“interactions that help the individual being coached to expand [their] awareness,

discover superior solutions, and make and implement better decisions” (“The

Extraordinary Coach”, p. 44). Good leaders help their subordinates overcome their

personal and professional problems by challenging them to think differently to come up

with different solutions. A virtual leader absolutely needs to do this as virtual teams

don’t have the luxury of brainstorming face to face so they need to encourage their

members to creatively think for themselves and coach them through the tough times.

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This doesn’t always happen on the virtual team at XYZ Corporation. Lisa and

Brianne are so far removed from the day to day activities that they don’t know what

each person does. They rely solely on the recruiting managers of the team to coach

their associates. The problem with this is that the recruiting manager very rarely focus

on the associate’s career goals; they only focus on what the associate did well or could

improve upon in the work place setting, usually having to do with a recent project.

There has been so much turnover over in the last 4 years that the coach/coachee

relationship has had to develop very quickly and sometimes this creates tension where

the coachee might not trust their new coach to have their back. Feedback is often given

in real time, which is something that XYZ Corporation has stressed over the last year,

but if there’s no trust or relationship between the person giving the feedback and the

one receiving it, the feedback won’t be heard or taken to heart.

The other issue is that because the recruiting managers act as the coaches, Lisa

nor Brianne have discussions with the associates in regards to where they stand on the

team, what they should be doing to work towards a promotion, and what their career

goals are. Because of this, the associates seem to be blindly following the processes

put in place without any sense about how they fit in and how they can grow within the

process. Lisa and Brianne need to take a more active role in the careers of their

associates and team overall because if they don’t, there will be more turnover, which

will result in wasting time and money on training new people.

Without the proper coaching from team leaders, team members will become

stuck, unmotivated, and will lose trust in their abilities. Coaching can’t just be about the

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team; it has to be about the individual person and how their abilities can help the overall

team.

Solutions

While there are things that Lisa and Brianne do that are ineffective, there are

certainly techniques that they can incorporate into their leadership approaches to help

them and their team be more trusting of one another. The goal is help them build a

better team where they don’t just boost productivity, but they also boost morale.

A productive team is essential to any company’s success, but a virtual team

needs to work harder to reach that goal. One way a virtual leader can ensure

productivity is to create an atmosphere of inclusion, openness, and trust. Because

team members don’t see each other, they might feel out of touch with one another and

leadership. Virtual leaders should set up a recurring meeting to check in with each

team member to see how they are doing with their work load, if they have any questions

or concerns about a project or process that the overall team is using, and to genuinely

take an interest in their well-being. This type of behavior instills a sense of trust

between members and leaders because they know that their leaders value them as

people, not just employees. Another way leaders can help to build trust is by utilizing

technology. Instead of a conference call, leaders should use video conferencing so

team members can actually see each other. This will also allow everyone to see body

language, which is essential in communication. On a virtual team, most of the time you

are talking with colleagues over the phone or through email/instant messaging so you

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lose a big part of communicating with each other. However, if you are able see their

facial expressions and their body language, you can really gauge how they feel about

something, which can open up a dialogue for brainstorming a different outcome. It also

allows for more connectivity so members don’t feel like they’re just talking to the void,

which can happen when you only communicate via phone or email.

In addition to virtual leaders improving team morale, they should also work on

their own leadership style. One way virtual leaders can alter their approach is through

Northouse’s four factors of Transformational Leadership. The first factor is idealized

influence, which is the emotional component of leadership and “describes leaders who

act as strong role models for followers” which helps leaders to establish the ground

rules for the team (p. 191). The second factor is inspirational motivation which

describes a leaders whose “communication [sets] high expectations to followers,

inspiring them through motivation to become committed to and a part of the shared

vision in the organization” (p. 193). This factor helps the virtual leaders to establish the

purpose for the team even if the team is only together for a few weeks or months while

keeping with the theme of the company’s overall mission statement. The third factor is

intellectual stimulation which helps leaders to “stimulate followers to be creative and

innovative and to challenge their own beliefs and values as well as those of the leader

and the organization” (p. 193). It’s not always a bad thing for members to question their

leaders and leaders need to be open to the constructive feedback. The final factor is

individual consideration and it involves “leaders who provide a supportive climate in

which they listen carefully to the individual needs of followers” which goes back to how a

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virtual leader can help their team be more productive because now they are actively

listening to followers and treating them as human beings (p. 193).

Another way to develop trust on a virtual team is for the leader to appropriately

motivate their subordinates. One way to do this is through what is called Motivation by

Appreciation. This type of motivation allows the leader to praise members for a job well

done. In “Leading Team Skills”, Arthur H. Bell and Dayle M. Smith talk about a study

done by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard. Their study was about workers who said that

being appreciated for a job well done was the number one motivator when asked what

motivated them. No matter how big or small the project, if a leader let’s a member know

that they did a good job and are needed on the team, that member is more motivated to

do a good job. Appreciation motivation only works if you trust the person who is

praising you. If you don’t believe that the words of appreciation, you won’t be motivated

to perform to the best of your abilities. As stated in some of the interviews from team

members at XYZ Corporation, people are motivated by different things: their current

project, the people they’re working with, or meeting the goals set out by the leaders. As

long as the leaders of the team continue to give praise where it’s due, the members will

continue to be motivated which will help the whole team be more productive and

develop trust amongst one another.

Lastly, the virtual leaders at XYZ Corporation should utilize the FUEL Coaching

Framework created by Zenger and Stinnet to help their employees reach their fullest

potential. The first part of the framework involves Framing the Conversation (“F”). This

entails the coach or leader setting “the context for the conversation by agreeing on the

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purpose, process, and desired outcomes of the discussion” so the coachee knows

exactly how the coaching conversation is going to run” (p. 70). The second step in the

framework involves Understanding the Current State (“U”) by the coach exploring “the

coachee’s point of view [and expanding] the coachee’s awareness of the situation to

determine the real coaching issues” (p. 70). This is an important step as a coaching

conversation should be a discussion about the coachee, not a one sided discussion

where the coach just lays out their suggestions for the coachee. If the person being

coached doesn’t believe in it, then they aren’t going to follow through so they really

need to be the one to lead the conversation. The third part of the coaching framework

is Exploring the Desired State (“E”). This part involves the coach and coachee

“[articulating] the vision of success in this scenario, and [exploring the] multiple

alternative paths before prioritizing methods of achieving this vision” (p. 70). This is

another important step in the coaching conversation because it allows for a

brainstorming session to come up with different ways to approach the problem and

rectify it. The final part of the framework is Laying Out a Success Plan (“L”). This might

be the most important component of a coaching discussion because if a coachee

doesn’t have an action plan then the whole coaching conversation is pointless. Laying

out a success plan involves “[identifying] the specific, time-bounded action steps to be

taken to achieve the desired results, and determine the milestones for follow-up and

accountability” (p. 70). A coach or leader needs to help their coachee come up with a

game plan and a timeline for when they should regroup and see where the coachee

stands. This holds the coachee accountable to achieve their goals.

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These tips and techniques are helpful for any leader, but especially useful for

virtual leaders. Virtual leaders need to be able to create a safe, supportive, and trusting

team environment in a virtual setting while also motivating and inspiring each member

so that the team works productively. Lastly, they need to be able to have a coaching

conversation with each member. They might not be the direct coach for that employee,

but as a leader, they need to take some initiative and have conversations with their

members to make them feel wanted. Being on a virtual team, it’s hard to feel like you’re

part of an actual team because you don’t see everyone you’re working with, but if the

leaders of this team can incorporate some of these solutions into their leadership

approach, they will not only notice a morale boost in their team, but they will see

productivity on the rise, turnover decrease, and an overall happier team.

Final Thoughts

This Master’s program has really opened my eyes to what leadership is. Being in

a position of leadership doesn’t necessarily mean that you are a good leader. A good

leader is someone who inspires you, motivates you, and challenges you in ways you

never imagined so you can grow and develop as a person. A good leader doesn’t need

to be in a position of power. They could be someone that you work with, someone that

is in the same position as you, or it could be someone from another team or company

that you look up to.

One of the things I’m going to take away from this program is how I need to be

more mindful about how I lead. Whether I’m leading a project team or I’m in a position

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of power, I want to make sure that I’m actively listening to my team members, asking for

and giving feedback that’s appropriate and constructive, and making sure that everyone

is inspired and motivated to do a good job for the greater good of the team and

company, not just their own personal goals. I, as a leader, want to make sure that my

team members are the best versions of themselves, not just as employees, but as

people and that is the biggest thing I’ve learned and the biggest thing I’m taking away.

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Bibliography

Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice. California: Sage

Zenger, J.H., & Stinnett, K. (2010). The Extraordinary Coach: How the best leaders help

other grow. New York: McGraw Hill

Bell, A.H., & Smith, D.M. (2011). Learning Team Skills. Boston: Prentice Hall

Purvanova, R.K., & Bono, J.E. (2009). Transformational leadership in context: face-to-face

and virtual teams. The Leadership Quarterly, 20, 343-357. Doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2009.03.004

DeRosa, D.M., Hantula, D.A., Kock, N., & D’Arcy, J. (2004). Trust and leadership in virtual

teamwork: a media naturalness perspective. Human Resource Management, 43, 219-232. DOI: 10.1002/hrm.20016

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