Northouse, Leadership 8e
SAGE Publications, 2019
Case 14.3: Starts With a Bang, Ends With
a Whimper
Case Synopsis and Analysis
Kim Green, a faculty member from the management department of a major university, has
been asked to chair a committee tasked with planning the mission of the university for the
next 20 years. The president gave the committee its charge: “What should Northcoast
University be like in the year 2020” and told members to make this a high priority.
Several faculty members served on this committee and seemed excited about the task and
honored to be selected. The members regularly met and shared research related to their task.
With time, however, the members began to disagree about the mission and goals of the
group. People stopped attending meetings, consensus was never reached, and even the
president lost interest in the project.
This case study is all too real: lofty and ambiguous goals are created, new teams are formed,
and the goals are not achieved. However, by dissecting the dysfunction in this case, students
will be able to pinpoint key areas for change that could help teams like Kim Green’s function
well in the future.
Learning objectives:
• Students will be able to apply the eight characteristics of team excellence to a team.
• Students will be able to apply functions that a leader should implement to improve a
team.
Answers to questions in the text:
1. Which characteristics of excellence were lacking in this task force?
The eight characteristics of team excellence are clear, elevating goal, results-driven
structure, competent team members, unified commitment, collaborative climate,
standards of excellence, external support and recognition, and principled leaders.
Kim’s team seems to have competent team members, unified commitment, and
Northouse, Leadership 8e
SAGE Publications, 2019
Teams also need to find the best structure for accomplishing their goals. Structural
features that lead to effective teamwork include task design, team composition, and
core norms of conduct (Wageman et al., 2009). In this case, the team lacked structural
features that could have helped them accomplish their goals. Each member did
“research” with seemingly little focus to that research. It seems, in fact, that they all
were tasked with a vague job, returned to a meeting to discuss their findings, and
quarreled about the differences. Structures should have been in place so that each
team member had clear and distinct areas to research related to the vision. Then they
could have shared their findings in the meetings with less conflict.
2. Which characteristics of excellence were evident in this task force?
3. How would you assess Kim as a leader?
4. What actions would you take (internally or externally) if you were the leader of this
task force?
There needs to be some internal and external changes to help the team function better
and achieve its goals. Internally, Kim needs to develop clear, unifying goals and a
results-driven structure. Doing so will help clarify the team’s objectives and empower
Potential teaching approaches:
Below is a way to structure a class based on Team Leadership and Case Study 14.3:
• Hold a lecture on team leadership .
• Ask students to read Case 14.3 and answer the questions.
• Discuss questions in the case study as a class.
• Finally, the professor may choose to conduct in-class exercises listed below.
Exercises for this case study:
1) Ask students to turn back the clock and assume the role of president of the university.
The president wants to create a committee tasked with developing a new mission for
the university.
Northouse, Leadership 8e
SAGE Publications, 2019
2) Students should create a list of three key mistakes the president of the university
made with this task force. What did he/she do wrong, and how could he/she fix these
mistakes?
3) In small groups or teams, students should assume the role of change agents and
discuss ways this university may improve in the next 20 years. Assume they have