Northouse, Leadership 9e
SAGE Publications, 2021
Case 16.1: Team Crisis Within the Gates
Case Synopsis and Analysis
A giant oil and gas company, Axis Global, owns nine refineries worldwide, each with its own
IT team “within the refinery gates” that reports to management. The company has a
centralized IT team located in Paris that makes standardized decisions for all IT teams in the
company. The Paris IT team concluded that the IT services company-wide should be
outsourced to a third party, which means the current employees’ jobs would either be
retained, replaced, or terminated. This decision by the centralized team did not sit well with
Russ Saffold, the manager of the Tappan Refinery in Pennsylvania. Russ would like to keep
Learning Objectives:
• Students will be able make a decision using the Hill Model for Team Leadership
• Students will be able to determine the internal or external leadership actions that need
to be taken in order to increase team effectiveness
Answers to Questions in the Text:
1. Should Russ Saffold intervene to help his team handle this crisis? If so, what type of
leadership action should he take? Internal task? Internal relational? External
environmental?
2. What leadership actions, if any, should team members take?
Northouse, Leadership 9e
SAGE Publications, 2021
3. What should Russ Saffold do (if anything) to mitigate the two opposing positions
regarding outsourcing of IT (Axis Global versus Tappan Refinery)?
4. What characteristics of team excellence are currently lacking in this team?
This team is lacking:
• Clear, elevating goal since they are unsure if they will still have their jobs.
• Extreme support and recognition and unified commitment since Axis Global is
Potential Teaching Approaches:
Below is a way to structure a class based on Team Leadership and Case Study 16.1:
• Hold a lecture on Team Leadership.
Exercises for This Case Study:
1) Students assume the role of a leader for this team. The leader understands the team’s
dysfunctions and wants to develop a plan to turn the team around.
2) Role-play: Students play the parts of Russ Saffold, Todd, Samantha, and Alejandro.
Together, they discuss what needs to happen in order for the team to run more
efficiently. They should discuss the internal problems first. Then the leader needs to
share the proposal for change with the team. The team should work together to revise
this proposal. Here, the professor should encourage the students to “stay in character”
and act in the manner they believe their characters would act.