Ashley Baum Case Study_FINAL

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