United States Sports Academy

National coaching certification that offers 3 levels of certification:

http://www.ussa.edu/continuing-education/certification-programs/national-coaching/

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Remember the Titans

Situational Leadership: An analysis of Remember the Titans

Sara Schoenhoft

ESS 520- Leadership in Sport

2/22/11

Situational leadership is the idea that one changes his or her leadership style in a given situation. According to Hershey and Blanchard, the type of leadership that is appropriate for any given situation is driven by follower readiness or development.  Readiness is based on two factors: ability, meaning the follower has the necessary knowledge, skill, and experience and willingness, or confidence, commitment, and motivation.

The theoretical model put forth by Hershey and Blanchard matches up each follower readiness level with an appropriate leadership style. R1 means that the followers are low on ability and low on confidence. This calls for leadership style S1, which is comparable to a dictator, and involves the coach providing specific instructions and closely supervising performance. S1 falls on the spectrum that is high on task behavior but low on relationship behavior. R2 is the next follower level where the followers are still low in ability but high in willingness. S2 is the leadership style to go along with R2 and is high on task and high on relationships. The leader, in this case, explains decisions and provides opportunity for clarification. R3 (high on ability, low on willingness) matches up with S3 (low task, high relationship) which is a supportive leadership style. The leader shares ideas and facilitates in decision making. The final level is R4 (high ability, high willingness) and the final leadership style is S4, a kind of laissez-faire style of coaching. In S4, the leader turns over responsibility for decisions and implementation.

Remember the Titans is a movie based on the true story of integration in the 1970’s and how that plays out on the high school football field. It is also a good illustration of situational leadership and follower readiness as the movie follows the black head coach, Coach Boone, and the white assistant coach, Coach Yoast, along with their new racially integrated football team.

The movie starts out with the teams from the separate schools hanging out with just each other, showing that they are comfortable with members of their race and comfortable with their roles and positions on their respective teams. However, when the two must merge together the level of discomfort and unease is evident from the very first team meeting. This is an example of a team in the forming stage of Bruce Tuckman’s model of group development. Forming is the stage characterized by uncertainty and shyness. The team doesn’t know what to expect from each other or their coaches. In this scene of the first team meeting, Coach Boone addresses the black players and tells them that this is a dictatorship, not a democracy. He clearly establishes himself and sets the tone for what he expects from his team members (Remember the Titans, 11:15). Coach Yoast then walks in with the white athletes and the whole team meets for the very first time (Remember the Titans, 13:25). Although this is still technically forming, there is always an underlying sense of conflict and tension, which is perhaps a result of overall unease of the community and the nation in regards to race relations at this point in history.

The next scene depicts Coach Boone shoving his team into the storming stage as they prepare to leave for pre-season training camp. He assigns white and black players to sit together and lets them know that they will also be rooming together at camp (Remember the Titans, 17:00).This is a great example of a coach knowingly pushing his team into conflict so that they can get though storming and into norming and performing.

At the forming stage, the follower readiness level is R1. They segregate themselves whenever possible, showing an unwillingness to come together and play as a team. This is evident in the first team meeting and when they get on the buses to go to training camp. In addition, the newness of the team along with the racial hostility in the community at large makes it so that they are unable to come together.

Coach Boone’s leadership style is S1 at this point. He explicitly states that this is a dictatorship, not a democracy, and his authority is further established when he is approached by two of the white players, Gary and Ray, who try to tell him how to run the team (Remember the Titans, 15:30). He publicly states that he is in charge and clearly puts them in their place in front of the team, coaching staff, and all of their families.

On the other hand, Coach Yoast seems to be in leadership style S2. His approach draws on the relationships he has with his players and the community and he tries to explain what is going on without being a complete authoritarian. I think that the difference in their coaching styles at this point of the team development stems from the fact that Yoast has a relationship with many of the boys and their families while Boone is trying to come in and prove himself in an openly hostile environment. If Boone weren’t as tough as he was, it would be hard for him to ever earn the respect that he needed to run the team.

As the team leaves for training camp, it is clear that they are in the storming phase. There are multiple instances of hostility and tension between the black and white players. Arguments over who gets which bed and what posters to hang on walls eventually gives way to a fist fight between Gary (the white captain) and Julius (the black team leader) who were assigned to room together (Remember the Titans, 19:10).

As practice gets underway, there is constant conflict between teammates and coaches alike. Yoast makes it obvious that he doesn’t always agree with what Boone is doing by his facial expressions and his tone of voice. At one point, Yoast talks to Boone about introducing new plays and letting the boys have some fun and Boone is not open or willing to hear any new ideas (Remember the Titans, 23:20). Boone is pushing his players to the brink, in their faces yelling at them and punishing them if they miss a tackle or fumble a football (Remember the Titans, 20:45-22:00).

During this stage of intense storming, the team begins to enter R2 of follower readiness. They are still unable to work together and play at the highest level, but they are starting to feel more secure in their roles on the team and are showing a level of willingness to get to know their teammates, black and white alike. Boone tells everyone that they must get to know every one of their teammates and report back to him on what they are learning (Remember the Titans, 26:00). Some of the players start to bond and form new relationships, which lays the groundwork for the team to progress into the norming stage.

At this point, Coach Boone is still in leadership style S1. He tells his players and coaches what to do with no room for suggestions or input. He makes sure that it is clear that he is the final authority on and off the field. Coach Yoast is somewhere between S2 and S3. His concern for the relationships with his players is evident when he questions Boone for pushing them too hard (Remember the Titans, 27:50) or when he wants to introduce some new plays to let the boys have some fun. He is supportive and encouraging of his players at practice and motivates them without being too harsh. I think that this difference in coaching is good in that is provides a good balance between two extremes. However, it is harmful to the team in that the coaches are clearly not on the same page so that makes it hard for the players to work together when it is obvious that the coaching staff is struggling to work together.

The team slowly creeps into the norming stage and it is evident during the Gettysburg run scene (Remember the Titans, 31:00). Boone wakes them up at 3:00 AM and takes them on a grueling run to the battlefield of Gettysburg. During the run, you see teammates supporting each other and pushing each other to keep moving, and by the time they finish the run, they are too exhausted to hate each other or fight.

More evidence of norming is clear when Gary calls out a white teammate for not blocking for a black quarterback (Remember the Titans, 34:45). Julius and Gary, the two leaders who were constantly at odds with each other, come together at the end of a grueling practice to show team spirit and camaraderie. At this point, roles are clear and the team is sorting out what it stands for. The players start to come together and there is a comfort level that never existed. The team is seen cheering, encouraging, and pumping each other up (Remember the Titans, 36:00), they joke around and sing with each other in the locker room (Remember the Titans, 38:05), and they sit at mixed tables in the dining hall. When they leave camp after two weeks, they are feeling good and have clearly come a long way since they left.

Once they get back to school, there is obvious tension within the community, but the team fights to stay united and play together. Julius and Gary work together to break up fights at school and the team goes out to celebrate after wins together. But the racial discomfort is always close at hand when the team members get kicked out of a restaurant because some of them are black. They win the first couple of games, but Boone points out that they aren’t playing with any heart. The turning point into the performing phase is when the team calls a meeting without the coaches and comes up with their own warm-up routine to distinguish themselves from everyone else and to make sure they are playing with heart and soul (Remember the Titans, 1:04:00).

During the norming phase, the team progresses into R3. They are definitely able to get along and play together, but once they leave camp their confidence is shaken by the racial tension they encounter. Coach Boone also progresses in his leadership style to S2. The relationships with his players and coaches start to develop (Remember the Titans, 58:30) and he becomes more of a coach than a dictator. Coach Yoast is at S3 at this point. His relationship behavior is high, as evidenced when he convinces Petey to play defense for him after Boone had chewed him out (Remember the Titans, 51:00). Coach Boone and Yoast seem to be more on the same page at this point in the movie and it reflects in their team.

The team is in the performing stage as they continue to win games and eventually go 13-0 to win the state championship. Their unique warm-up style gives their team an identity and sets them apart from the competition (Remember the Titans, 1:07:05). Players step up and get the job done when they are called on (Remember the Titans, 1:09:30), and the bad seeds are weeded out by the players, like when Gary decides he needs to kick Ray off the team for not doing his job (Remember the Titans, 1:12:25). During this performing stage, the team is definitely at R4. They have the ability and the confidence to win football games and play as a team. They are bought into the coaching staff and each other and it shows on the field.

In terms of the leadership style, Coach Boone stays in S2 for the most part, but he also shows glimpses of S3 and S4. He shows great concern for a player when he hugs him after hearing about his eligibility for college and he lets Gary make the decision to kick Ray off the team. Boone also starts to be more open to ideas from Yoast, like in the championship game when Yoast tells Boone he needs to change it up and do something different (Remember the Titans, 1:42:45). This openness to new ideas shows Boone’s leadership style adaptability. As the situations called for it, Boone used a different leadership style. Yoast was also in S2 at this point in the movie; he listened to Boone for ideas about defense and continued to push and motivate his players. He let the one of the team members make the decision when a player gave up his spot to another player when he wasn’t getting the job done (Remember the Titans, 1:39:50), showing an S4 style of leadership. Yoast also continued to show high concern for relationships as he did throughout the movie by visiting Gary in the hospital and trying to comfort him after his life changing injury.

Overall, this movie was a good illustration of situational leadership. Coach Boone, who seemed like he would never be anything but an authoritarian, adapted his leadership styles as his team proved that they needed a different kind of leader. In addition, while the conflicts throughout the movie were inevitable, as the team progressed though the group development stages and through the readiness levels, the coaches progressed as well, proving that progress can lead to near perfection.

References

Allerman, G.B. (2004). Forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. Retrieved from http://coachleadership.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/formstormnormperform.pdf 7 February, 2011.

Bruckheimer, J. & Yakin, B. (2000). Remember the Titans. United States: Disney.

ChangingMinds.org. “Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Leadership.” Retrieved from http://changingminds.org/disciplines/leadership/styles/situational_leadership_hersey_blanchard.htm 22 February, 2011.

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Situational leadership

After the first 2.5 weeks of practice at WNEC, I am starting to get to know the softball team and the individual players. There is one player in particular, a first year, who is struggling immensely with her performance and her attitude. She is a self-proclaimed shortstop, but her lack of arm strength makes it improbable that she will see any playing time at shortstop. The coaching staff and I have decided to move her over to second base because it is a shorter throw and she might have a chance to play if she focuses on second base rather than shortstop.

Her lack of skill is exacerbated by her poor attitude and work ethic. She does not respond well to constructive criticism or feedback. She doesn’t put forth any effort to change her mechanics when instructed, she fails to make eye contact when being spoken to by the coaches, and her overall effort level is very low. According to the follower developmental scale, she would be classified as D1, unable, that is, lacks the necessary knowledge, experience, and skill, and unwilling, or lacks the necessary confidence, commitment, and motivation. At a D1 follower level, Hershey and Blanchard theorize that the best leadership style to use would be S1. S1 is the leader behavior of telling, where the leader provides specific instructions and closely supervises performance. It can be compared to a dictator type of leadership and falls high when it comes to task or performance and low when it comes to relationship.

This weekend, I decided to try out the S1 leadership style with this player. We were having an intersquad scrimmage and she was playing second base. She made a few errors in a row and I pulled her aside and told her what she needed to do in order to improve her performance. She barely acknowledged me when I gave her feedback and just turned and ran back to her position with a slight shake of her head. A few plays later, she made another error. I immediately pulled her in and told her what she should have done in that situation. She proceeded to roll her eyes at me! I was so angry and I immediately went to the head coach to report the player’s rude and disrespectful behavior. We agree that something needs to be done about her attitude because we really don’t want that kind of negative energy on the team.

Clearly, the S1 leadership style didn’t really work because her performance did not improve and her attitude worsened throughout practice. I want to try out a different leadership style to see if I can get through to her and hopefully improve her attitude and performance. I am going to go for S2 at the next practice, high on task and moderate to high on relationship, to see if she responds better when things are being explained to her instead of her just being told what to do. My fingers are crossed…

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What is leadership?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leadership

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Concern for performance? Concern for people? Group Evolution?

Blake Mouton’s Managerial Model uses two dimensions to classfiy leadership: concern for players and concern for performance. Currently, I fall around 7 (1-10) in concern for performance and 5 in concern for players. Because I just started at a new school one week ago, I don’t know the players very well so it is hard to get to know all of them and put their concern above concern for designing drills and developing strategy to make the team better. As I get to know the players, I think my concern for them will definitely grow, especially since the head coach, who I am also just getting to know, is definitely more concerned about performance.

Ideally, I would like to be a coach who falls very high on concern for players and moderately high on concern for performance. I think that at the Division 3 level, relationships between coaches and teammates can be very powerful and can often times be the difference between a good team and great team. That is why I want to emphasize concern for players and develop relationships with my athletes to put them first as people and then focus on performing well and winning second.

Because I just started coaching a new team, I will classify my team from last year according to the group evolution model. In the four phases, forming, storming, norming, and performing, my team never made it out of the storming phase. There was constant conflict throughout the season, which started at the top with the senior captains, and players were unhappy, mad at coaches, mad at each other, and looking out for themselves instead of the betterment of the team. Due to the fact that the team was storming for the majority of the season, we never reached our full potential and ended the season with a disappointing record. Depsite the talent, the dynamics of the team were such that we were not able to be as successful as anyone hoped.

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Miracle: An analysis of the leadership styles and team evolution

Leadership and Coaching Analysis of the film Miracle

Sara Schoenhoft

Leadership in Sport: ESS 520

2/8/11

Miracle is a film that depicts the true story of the 1980 United States Men’s Hockey team as they prepare and compete in the Winter Olympics at Lake Placid. Herb Brooks, the head coach, along with his assistant coach Craig Patrick, tackle the difficult task of preparing young men, most just out of college, to play against the toughest competition the world has to offer. Their coaching styles, strategies, and interactions with the players all contribute to the success of the team. Their unique leadership styles help guide the team to a huge upset over the Soviet Union and an eventual gold medal at the 1980 Olympics. Even though I have seen this movie several times, it was interesting to specifically watch and then analyze the leadership and coaching styles of Herb and Craig.

The movie begins as Herb is first arguing his case to win the position of head coach, and then is picking his team to take to the Olympics. The tryout scene (Miracle 11:00-14:00) consists of Herb watching the players for one day and choosing his players without consulting anyone else, even his assistant coach. Decision making is an important aspect of leading, and how a coach makes his or her decisions can have a huge impact on the players, fans, management, and anyone else who might be involved. Victor Vroom and Phillip Yetton developed a model (Vroom-Yetton Decision Model) to help those in leadership positions make decisions in a variety of different situations. The model consists of a series of questions that the leader must ask themselves, which then point to a specific decision making strategy. Some of the different strategies include autocratic decisions, collaborative decisions, and collective decisions (http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_91.htm).

The first question deals with the importance of the quality of the decision. In this case, the choosing of the Olympic team, the quality of the decision is extremely important. The next question asks if there is sufficient information to make a high-quality decision. Herb only watched the players for one day even there was a week of tryouts scheduled, so that may seem like he did not have enough information. However, Herb tell Craig that he watched film, he coached many of the players, and he talked to the coaches of the kids who hadn’t played for him, so he had done extensive background work so that he did have enough information to make a quality decision. In addition, he had a very specific idea of the type of player that he wanted so he knew exactly what to look for. Therefore, the answer to the second question is also yes. The third question asks if the problem is structured, that is, is the problem well-understood so that a good solution is easily defined. The answer to this question is yes because Herb knew exactly what he wanted his team to look like. He wasn’t looking for all-stars; he was looking for guys who would work hard and who would do what was best for the team. The fourth and fifth questions both deal with others involved and if the decision would be accepted and if the goals are the same across all involved with the Olympic team. In terms of other accepting his decision, there was definitely some backlash from the top because the advisory board didn’t get a say. But, in the end, they had chosen Herb to lead the team to the gold medal so they put their trust in him. And everyone shared the same goal of putting together the best team possible to compete at the Olympics.

Answering yes to both of those questions leads to the best decision making strategy as outlined by Vroom and Yetton. Herb’s decision was definitely autocratic, he made the decision all on his own, but it would be labeled as autocratic II because he did use other coaches and film to get a background on the players and thus help him make a better decision. This is a good strategy in this situation according to Vroom and Yetton. Even though Herb took matters completely into his own hands and chose his team all on his own, the situation at hand made that possible for Herb’s decision making strategy to be successful.

Once the team is chosen, the movie starts to get going with meeting the players and starting practice and competition. It is interesting to watch the evolution of the team and how they go from a bunch of rival college kids to an Olympic hockey team. The coaches definitely play a role in their evolution as a team and lead them to perform at their absolute best. The Group Evolution Model is a model that describes four stages of group evolution: forming, storming, norming, and performing. (Allerman, 2004) As a coach, it is the goal to take a team from the forming stage and progress to the performing stage by the time the big championship game rolls around. In Miracle, we watched the team go from forming to performing in six short months.

The forming stage is really just the team members getting to know each other. Everything is light, people are happy, and problems haven’t started to pop up yet. When Craig is calling out the names of those who were chosen for the team (Miracle 14:00-14:45), the boys are all smiles and congratulating each other. This is the forming stage. Right after Craig calls out the names, Herb walks in and immediately adds fire to the team, helping move them to the storming phase (Miracle 15:20). He tells them that the ones who went home were the lucky ones. They, being the chosen ones, are going to have a rough road and that more of them will be going home before the Games start. This immediately puts them on the defensive knowing that they will be competing with each other for the final roster slots.

The storming phase is in full swing when college rivals start to get heated in the bar scene (Miracle 19:45) and when they turn to all out fighting during practice (Miracle 21:15). Herb recognizes this in his team and lets the boys fight it out, even stopping Craig from going to break it up. Teams have to progress through the stages to perform in the end, so storming, though it can be difficult, is a necessary stage for a team to go through. The storming phase is full of conflict between teammates, between coaches and teammates, and an overall unrest in the team.

Herb works hard to push his team from storming to norming- the next phase in group evolution. Norming is the phase when the team has come together and is starting to gel as one unit. In order to get his team to this phase, Herb works his players so hard that they don’t have time to hate each other. He also encourages them to let go of old rivalries and become a team (Miracle 23:00). One of the most powerful scenes in the movie depicts the shift from storming to norming when Herb makes his team do sprints over and over again after a poor performance (Miracle 39:40). As the boys are falling down and throwing up on the ice, as Craig and the trainer plead with Herb to stop before someone got hurt, one of the players spoke up and said that his name was Mike Eruzione and he played for the United States of America (Miracle 46:00). This illustrated a shift in attitude on the team; they weren’t individuals from different colleges anymore, they were one team playing for the U.S.A. and striving to win a gold medal.

The norming phase was marked by teamwork and can-do attitudes. Practices scenes show players encouraging each other, working together, and bonding as a team (Miracle 52:30). The camaraderie on the team was building and their performance was improving. However, Herb still needed to push his players into the final phase before the Olympics started. To do this, he challenged his players to step up and be better and he even brought in a new player that he thought would help the team (Miracle 56:15). His strategies to get his team to perform worked as seen when the leaders of the team approached Herb and asked him to send the new player home (Miracle 1:02:45). The players said that it wasn’t fair to bring in the new game because they had put in all the work and they were a family.

This marked the transition into the performing stage. Once the players saw themselves not as individuals but as families, they performed on the ice to the best of their ability. Seeing the team chemistry and relationships at Christmas (Miracle 1:05:20), on the bench, and on the ice, it was clear the team had settled into the performing phase and were ready to face their toughest opponents at the Olympics.

Miracle is a film that not only chronicles the performance of a gold medal Olympic hockey team, it also goes in depth into the coaching styles, the relationships, and the hard work, and the team chemistry that it takes to win an Olympic gold medal. Herb and Craig are two coaches who work well together and balance each other out to form a coaching staff that takes care of the complete package of a successful team. Craig is the coach who the players can go to, the one who encourages and takes care, the one who deals with the players as people, not just as players. Herb tells him this specifically, that it is his job to be friends with them take care of all the personal problems (Miracle 15:20). His role is clear when he questions Herb’s conditioning methods and expresses concern for the welfare of the players (Miracle 36:55), when he tries to stop Herb from making the players do all the sprints (Miracle 42:55), and when Craig “cleans up” the emotional mess that Herb leaves in the locker room when trying to motivate the team in between periods (Miracle 1:25:35). Craig can be classified according to Blake Mouton’s Managerial Grid (http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_73.htm.). Mouton’s model has two dimensions, concern for people and concern for performance. Coaches can be classified on both dimensions and can be “country club leaders” (high concern for people, low concern for performance), “impoverished leaders” (low concern for both people and performance), “produce or perish leaders” (low concern for people and high concern for performance), or “team leaders” (high concern for both people and performance). Craig would fall high on concern for people and somewhere in the middle on concern for performance. He was the coach who needed to be their friend, but as an Olympic coach he also cared a good deal about performance but needed to balance out Herb’s intensity to give the team a better balance.

Herb, on the other hand, seemed to only care about performance at times.  He states in the opening scene that he wants to win a gold medal and he seems to stop at nothing to get there. He watched film for hours, often neglecting his wife and kids (Miracle 27:20), threw kids off the ice if they weren’t performing up to his expectations (Miracle 34:40), and punished the team by making them do sprints until they were falling over and throwing up for poor performance and lack of hustle after a game (Miracle 39:40). However, his concern for his players is also evident, especially in the second half of the movie. He kept a player on the team who was hurt because he had worked hard and earned the right to be on the team (Miracle 1:21:20), and he defended his team to the advisory board, reminding them that they were just kids and he was trying to protect them (Miracle 1:29:40). So even though Herb was highly concerned with performance, he was also middle to high on concern for players, putting him closest to the “team leader” ideal on the managerial grid.

Miracle shows on the big screen what it takes to be a successful and powerful team. A huge part of the success of the 1980 United States Hockey team came from the leadership of the coaching staff and the work they put into their players and their team to get to excel beyond anyone’s expectations.

References

Allerman, G.B. (2004). Forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. Retrieved from

http://coachleadership.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/formstormnormperform.pdf 7 February,

2011.

Ciardi, M., Gray, G. & O’ Connor, G. (2004). Miracle. United States: Disney.

Mindtools.“Blake-Mouton Managerial Grid: Balancing Task- and People-oriented leadership.”

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_73.htm. Retrieved 7 February, 2011.

Mindtools. “The Vroom-Yetton-Jago Decision Model: Deciding how to Decide.”

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_91.htm. Retrieved 7 February, 2011.

Vroom, V.H. & Yetton, P.W. (1973). Leadership and decision making. University of Pittsburgh Press:

Pittsburgh, PA.

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One of the greatest leaders of all time

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