Leadership Case Study: Applying Theory To Practice

MGMT1101 Global Business Environment

Analysis of Leadership in Remember the Titans Movie

1. Trait Theory: The trait theory explains that the personalities of individuals consists of broad dispositions. A trait is a something that makes individuals to act in a certain way. There are three major trait types, cardinal, central and secondary. Cardinal traits are those that dominate a person’s whole life and one becomes known due to this. Central traits are general characteristics, which forms foundations of a person’s personality (Clarke, 2013). Secondary traits are related to one’s attitude or preferences and appear only in a certain situation.
2. Trait: Cardinal traits are those, which dominate Coach Boone’s life, and in this case, he is a diplomatic leader (Nahavandi, 2016). He applies diplomacy wherever he can and his ultimate aim is to ensure that the team comes together.
3. Trait: Secondary traits appeared when Coach Boone had to handle the situation when the players first met and interacted. Here, he had to be dictatorial so that he could bring the team together as some players were undermining his efforts.

1. Hershey-Blanchard Model: This model is based on the pillars of leadership style and maturity level of the people being led. The leadership styles emanate from four behaviors, which are telling, selling, participating and delegating.
2. Level of follower readiness: The followers were at the M1 stage. At this stage, they did not have experience and had to be instructed on everything that they needed to do. In the movie, the players from both teams segregated themselves and were unwilling to play as a team (Vergara, 2014). The newness of the teams and the racial hostility displayed by the community made it difficult for them to collaborate.
3. Leadership style: Telling style of Leadership was used by Coach Boone in this stage. Here he simply told all the members what to do and how they would do it. He provided specific instructions. Here, Coach Boone is approached by two players, Gary and Ray, who want to dictate to him how things should run but publicly dismisses (Breunig, 2014).

1. Path-Goal Model: The path-goal model theory is based on specifying the style of a leader or a behaviors which best suits employees and work environments so that they can achieve goals. The aim is to increase motivation, empowerment and satisfaction so that employees become productive (Artiz & Walker, 2014). The path-goal model has four styles of leadership namely directive, supportive, participative and achievement.
2. Leadership style:  Coach Boone is directive in his leadership style as he encourages his players to achieve objectives. He gives them specific guidance and comes up with clear and rigorous schedules and policies so that the team can succeed. This can be demonstrated when he informs the team, “We will be perfect in every aspect. You drop a pass, you run a mile. You miss a blocking assignment, you run a mile. You make a fumble, I will take you and break your John Browns and then you will run a mile. Perfection.” (Leary 2013).
3. Leadership style: Coach Boone is also supportive in his leadership. He tries as much as possible to eliminate racism in the team. When a new player from California joins the team, he tells him that is he cuts his hair he might be given a chance to play (Keskes, 2014). Later, when the player cuts his hair, the coach encourages him to take a play by telling him he likes his haircut. He approaches all players in a similar manner to remove racism and prejudice so that team goals can be achieved.

Coach Boone is a transformational leader. In transformational leadership, a leader and his followers raise each other to high levels of motivation and morality (Saleem, 2015). Coach Boone assesses his team and identifies the obstacles, which are facing them as racial tension, no discipline and insubordination. Boone works with his players tirelessly by setting up a quasi-military boot camp, which is intended to make them ready for the first game of the season. He carefully uses praise and encouragement to build up the team (Henkel, 2016). He clearly spells out to the team what is expected of them and through this, he is able to eliminate obstacles and create a winning team.

Informal leadership is one’s ability to influence behavior of others by means, which do not involve formal authority. Such leaders can display informal and formal power. Informal leaders do not have the official authority to lead but they influence their fellow team members and can be more effective than the formal leaders in certain situations. One of the informal leaders in remember the titans is Louis Lastik. He was not judgmental based on skin color. This made him very reliable (Suen et al, 2016). When Louis walks into the lunchroom, he sits with the African Americans and his teammates regard him as a traitor. The African Americans also ask him what he is doing and tell him to go and sit with his people. Despite this, he replies that he does not have any people and that he is with everybody. This behavior portrays what Coach Boone wants to see among his teammates (Cooper, 2016). It influences others in the team to see that they can interact freely and there is no need for racial segregation as their ultimate aim is to see the team succeed.

1. Servant-Oriented Leadership: This is the type of leadership whereby the leader is servant first. The leader has the desire of serving his followers and wants to help those (Sarver & Miller, 2014). It is related to meeting the needs of colleagues and communities.
2. Example: Coach Boone demonstrates servant leadership by helping his team progress towards success by clarifying their paths. He instills in the team the notion that working hard will lead to good performance, which will be recognized and rewarded. Coach Boone goes to the extent of waking up the team at odd hours to practice so that they succeed in their games.

1. Example: Coach Boone’s servant leadership is shown by his efforts of bringing the team together despite the racial segregation (Gopal & Chowdhury, 2014). He considers racial segregation as a key obstacle to team success and does all he can to ensure that the team gels together.

1. Coach Boone builds personal connections between the team players. He wakes up the team to have a run at 3 a.m. and stops when they arrive at the Gettysburg Cemetery, which has fallen soldiers buried in its grounds (McCleskey, 2014). He then gives a speech about coming together of the team by telling them, “If we don’t come together right now on this hallowed ground, we too will be destroyed, just like they were. I don’t care if you like each other of not, but you will respect each other (Leary, 2013).” He then comes up with a strategy where a black player must have a white player as a roommate and they must get to know one another and present what they have learned about their new teammate (Bellamy & Bellamy, 2016).
2. Coach Boone ensures that there is strong internal leadership. This is an essential aspect for any team to succeed. He allows Garry and Julius to make team decisions and this makes the team stronger and more cohesive (Holmes, 2016). He also is not afraid to make changes on the field during games and this leads to overall team success for the titans.

Coach Boone’s approach mainly revolves around dictatorship and this led to him bringing organization and rules. His style can mainly defined as transactional as he focuses on supervising and team performance. He uses punishments and rewards to ensure team success.

Coach Yoast has a different style and he emphasizes on the personal needs and interests of the players (Shao, Feng & Hu, 2017). He mainly follows the Hersey-Blanchard technique, which revolves around development of followers and around servant leadership.

The best approach in the situation was Coach Boone’s style of leadership. Due to a lot of disrespect and segregation, it was best that such a leadership style is enforced as it made sure the players did what was best for the team and put their differences aside (Miller, 2016).

References

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Sarver, M., & Miller, H. (2014). Police chief leadership: styles and effectiveness. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 37(1), 126-143.

Bellamy, A., & Bellamy, A. (2016). The Relationship between Neurotic Leadership Styles, Transformational Leadership, Emotional Intelligence, and Worker Attitudes. European Scientific Journal, 12(22).

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Clarke, S. (2013). Safety leadership: A meta?analytic review of transformational and transactional leadership styles as antecedents of safety behaviours. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 86(1), 22-49.

Cooper, T. (2016). Manifest leadership styles in a Caribbean cross-sector network. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 37(1), 93-106.

Gopal, R., & Chowdhury, R. G. (2014). Leadership styles and employee motivation: An empirical investigation in a leading oil company in India. International journal of research in business management, 2(5), 1-10.

Henkel, T. G. (2016). The Relationship between Transformational Leadership Styles and University Adjunct Faculty Work Engagement.

Keskes, I. (2014). Relationship between leadership styles and dimensions of employee organizational commitment: A critical review and discussion of future directions. Intangible Capital, 10(1).

Leary, R. (2013). Remember the titans: A theoretical analysis. Journal of Arts and Humanities, 2(4), 11.

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Nahavandi, A. (2016). The Art and Science of Leadership -Global Edition. Pearson.

Saleem, H. (2015). The impact of leadership styles on job satisfaction and mediating role of perceived organizational politics. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 172, 563-569.

Suen, M. W., Lee, S. K., Tseng, Y. T., Chi, P. R., Chung, G. T., Liao, Y. C., … & Chin, Y. L. (2016). Are you the Right person? The Influences of Leadership Styles and Perceived Homosexuality on Management Decision Making Stereotype among University Students in Taiwan. International Journal of Psychology, 51, 1067.

Vergara, E. S. (2014). Characterization of leadership styles by analyzing social networks. Journal of Business, 6(1), 30-42.

Shao, Z., Feng, Y., & Hu, Q. (2017). Impact of top management leadership styles on ERP assimilation and the role of organizational learning. Information & Management.

Holmes, D. P. (2016). Leadership styles and perceptions of organizational culture: Does degree type make a difference? (Doctoral dissertation, Capella University).

Miller, M. (2016). How do the Leadership Styles of African American Women Entrepreneurs Influence their Ability to Lead Successful Businesses? (Doctoral dissertation, Creighton University).