Discovering Strategies to Lead Teams Abruptly Forced into Virtual Environments Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19 was an unprecedented time in the global economy, causing a massive shift for many organizations conducting business. The speed at which organizations needed to implement World Health Organization’s restrictions and transition their teams from face-to-face to virtual environments was unpredictable. The purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore what leaders prepared for an organization to cope with situations like COVID-19 when abruptly moving employees from face-to-face to virtual environments. A conceptual framework based on the organizational change theory and the team adaptation theory was used to direct this study. The research question address what strategies leaders within an organization now think they could have used during COVID-19 to adapt to an abrupt transition from face-to-face teams into virtual teams. Semistructured interviews were used to collect the data from 11 mid-to-senior level managers in a retail home renovation organization in Canada. A thematic analysis and Saldaña’s two-tiered coding process were conducted. The following four themes emerged: (a) bringing humanity back into the workplace, (b) mitigating extraordinary crisis and change, (c) swiftly pivoting to providing structure to business, and (d) adapting to the unconventional workplace environment. Within these four themes, leadership strategies for coping with the abrupt changes brought on by COVID-19 were discovered. The findings can contribute to positive social change by teaching leaders and managers what skills are needed, what strategies work, and how to continue to put the employees’ needs first to foster productivity at every level of the organization.