Leadership Analysis: Coach Carter

December 26, 2010Leadership Theories

Dr. Yuval Kalish

Submitted By:Olga Rubanovskaya

Lara KhamisNatalie PeledTalia Schmidt

Shiri Franco

In 1999, the Richmond High School basketball coach, Ken Carter, made

headlines for benching his undefeated team due to poor academic results. The story

of this basketball team was made into a movie by the name of "Coach Carter." In the

movie Kenneth Carter takes a job coaching the Richmond Oilers high school

basketball team. He discovers the players to be unruly and disrespectful, but

nonetheless, he sets goals for the team, gets to work and starts to gain their respect.

Coach Carter sets strict new rules for the team in the form of contracts; the contract

states that each player must maintain a 2.3 grade point average, must attend classes,

and must wear jackets and ties on game days. Under the tutelage of Coach Carter

the team goes on to win multiple consecutive games. After the team wins a few

games, Coach Carter receives the poor academic reports of the team. He then cracks

down on the team, locks them out of the gym in the midst of the still undefeated

season, and makes the team spend practice time studying in the library. The school

board and the parents fight back against Carter’s actions and manage to remove the

locks off of the gym doors. But, to much surprise, when he arrives at the gym he

finds the players sitting at school desks, studying. The players point out that even

though the gym is reopened, the school board can't force them to play.

Eventually, after bringing up their grades, the team makes it to the state high-

school championship playoffs. Despite the Oilers' strong efforts to win the game,

Carter´s team loses the game by one point. Despite losing the championship game,

the real victory was ultimately won: in a school that only graduated about 50% of

its students (of which only 6% went to college), six of Carter's players graduated

and even went on to college. Coach Carter succeeded in his ultimate goal of

coaching student athletes (as opposed to just athletes) and proving to his team of

players that the dream of going to college was not so farfetched.

In this paper, we analyze the movie according to two main leadership

theories: the Situational Leadership Theory and the Full Range Model of leadership.

We begin by presenting the theories and continue by analyzing the movie according

to each, thus demonstrating the application of these theories to the leadership style

of the main character in the movie, Coach Carter.

According to the Situational Leadership Theory, each situation where

leadership is apparent, is structured and influenced by situational factors.  Some of

the most influential situational factors include the type of subordinates that the

leader manages.  Hersey and Blanchard’s (1969) Situational Leadership Theory

(SLT) best describes 4 different types of subordinates and, in turn, the type of

leadership necessary for each type of the subordinates to obtain optimal results. 

The Situational Leadership Theory is a subcategory of Contingency Theories. 

Contingency theories explain that subordinates vary based on numerous factors

such as age, gender, skill level or level of motivation.  Therefore, in Hersey and

Blanchard’s theory, the type of leadership is contingent upon the kind of

subordinate managed.

According to SLT, subordinates are categorized by the follower’s maturity or

readiness.  SLT defines the maturity of readiness of followers as “the extent to which

people have the ability and willingness to accomplish a specific task”1. The theory

divides followers’ ability and readiness into four levels, also known as Development

Levels2. The first level occurs when the subordinate is both unable and unwilling to

complete the task at hand, which makes it most challenging for the leader to

manage. The second level occurs when the subordinate is still unable to complete

the task, but is now willing to complete the task and commits to doing what is in

his/her power to do so. The third level is different from the first two levels in that

the subordinate has the ability and is capable of

completing the task, but has no desire to do so.

Finally, the fourth, and most optimal, developmental

level occurs when the subordinate is both able and

willing to complete the task at hand.3 It is important

to note that after recognizing the type of subordinate

1 Nair, Shreekumar K., Leadership Styles and Effectiveness of Managers in a Public Sector Enterprise. 2 Situational Leadership Theory - The Blanchard and Hersey Model: (Encyclopedia II). http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Situational_leadership_theory_-_The_Blanchard_and_Hersey_Model/id/21179293 Nair, Shreekumar K., Leadership Styles and Effectiveness of Managers in a Public Sector Enterprise (Abhigyan, 2009).

Followers 4 Levels of Development

D1 - Unable & UnwillingD2 - Unable & WillingD3 - Able & UnwillingD4 - Able & Willing

the leader is working with in the situation, he/she then bases his/her type of

leadership upon two factors, task and relationship.  The leader’s task behavior is

defined by “the extent to which leaders plan, organize, monitor and control the

activities of their subordinates” and the relationship behavior is defined by “the

extent to which leaders maintain personal relationships with their subordinates by

indulging in open communication and by providing emotional support”4. 

Consequently, the leader must choose his/her leadership style based on the

developmental level of the subordinate.

Due to the fact that the leader must adapt to the subordinates, there are also

four types of leadership styles applicable to each of subordinate types, respectively. 

These leadership styles are directing (telling), coaching (selling), supporting

(participating) and delegating5.  The directing leadership style is used with

subordinates who are unable and unwilling to participate; therefore, the leader

must create specific tasks for the subordinates and supervise them closely.  The

leader uses the coaching style with subordinates who are unable and willing; in this

situation the communication is two-ways and although the leader still creates tasks

and supervises, the subordinates give their opinions and input as well. The third

approach is the supporting approach; this situation gives the subordinates the

opportunity to make certain decisions with the guidance of the leader because

subordinates are unwilling, but still able to complete tasks and make decisions

completely on their own.  The final leadership style is the

delegating style.  The delegating style gives the subordinates

full control over the decisions and tasks (because they are

both able and willing) and, furthermore, gives them the

authority to decide when and how the leader should be

involved in the process.

Unlike other leadership theories, such as Fiedler’s LPC Theory, Hersey and

4 Nair, Shreekumar K., Leadership Styles and Effectiveness of Managers in a Public Sector Enterprise (Abhigyan, 2009).5 Situational Leadership Theory - The Blanchard and Hersey Model: (Encyclopedia II). http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Situational_leadership_theory_-_The_Blanchard_and_Hersey_Model/id/2117929

4 Types of Leadership

Styles

S1- DirectingS2- CoachingS3- SupportingS4- Delegating

Blanchard’s SLT believes that leaders can change their leadership style.  The ability

to change one’s leadership style has proven to be one of the most influential and

important progressions in leadership development.

In the scene chosen, the interaction between the leader (Coach Carter) and

his followers (the team) is seen. The first part of the scene shows Coach Carter

reprimanding the team for violating the rules of the contract they signed in the

beginning of the season. Coach Carter is highly focused on the task at hand and is

doing everything possible to achieve it. He is determined to turn his team into

successful student athletes and has secured the support of other teachers to help

them achieve the goal.

However, the only way Coach Carter tries to motivate his basketball players

is by taking punitive measures such as closing the gym for training. He adopts the

telling leadership style to make sure everyone, regardless of his motivation levels

and ability, is working towards improving his GPA or helping his teammates do so.

In the scene it is apparent that the team responds to his behavior in a very

harsh manner; they are completely unwilling to cooperate with the Coach and do

not share his vision. One of the players, Cruz, even goes as far as quitting the team

due to his disappointment with the Coach’s decision and his lack of understanding of

Coach Carter’s motives. However, Coach Carter does not even try to prevent him

from leaving through the use of logical arguments or trying to appeal to Cruz, nor

does he try to explain why maintaining a certain GPA will be beneficial to him and

his teammates. Instead, the Coach just warns Cruz that he is making a mistake and

that by leaving the room he is losing his place on the team. At this point, the other

members of the team are either too intimidated to leave or just decide to accept the

new reality. They do not accept the Coach’s vision, but rather decide to cope with it.

According to the Situational Leadership theory, adopting the telling

leadership style was the best thing Coach Carter could have done in the situation.

His followers were both unable and unwilling to complete the task at hand and did

not want to voluntarily comply with the contract they had signed. They were given

the opportunity to improve their GPA by themselves, however, only half the team

did so. Therefore, according to the theory, adopting any other style would have

been a mistake and even explaining to the team the importance of having a decent

GPA and motivating them through logical arguments would not have yielded the

best results. The Situational Leadership Theory also states that a leader’s high but

realistic expectation leads to high performance of the followers. The scene shows

how this is true when the Coach’s attitude yields results – the team decides not to

play basketball until their GPA is up to standard even though nothing is stopping

them from doing so. Moreover, in the second part of the scene an amazing

transformation in the members of the team is seen: instead of being unmotivated,

bitter and lazy they have become driven, energized and inspired. They no longer

need the Coach to tell them what to do and how to do it. They have taken the

initiative and started making decisions by themselves. In this instance, the theory

would suggest that the best thing Coach Carter could have done is adopt a

delegating leadership style – staying involved in the process but permitting the

followers to take ownership and responsibility for their decisions and actions.

The scene does not just show the change in the behavior of the followers, but

also the transition in the leader’s behavior. Coach Carter adjusts his behavior

according to the maturity level of his followers. He first pushes his followers to

change their attitude using the telling style and then adjusts his behavior

accordingly to fit his leadership style to the new situation.

The theory fails to fully explain the change in the attitude of the followers. It

can only explain part of the transition – how the followers became much more able

during the course of the scene. By adopting the telling style the Coach made the

whole team study hard and perform better. Could adopting the telling style,

however, make the team members more willing?

In this paper we argue that the telling style alone cannot be accountable for a

change in the attitudes of the followers. It is possible to make the team perform

better through force, micro management and intimidation but it is not usually

possible to change their attitude to the task at hand and inspire them to voluntarily

join in the project and accept the vision simply through these means.

Therefore, the leadership style alone cannot lead to a transformation among

the followers. What, then, made all of the team members completely change their

attitudes and become much more willing and accept responsibility for their actions?

What made Cruz, the rebel of the group, come back to the team after firmly making

up his mind and leaving the team forever? These questions will be answered

through the analysis of the Full Range Leadership Model.

The Full Range Model (FRM) is considered one of the most modern

leadership theories. A considerable amount of research has been conducted on the

theory itself and on its validation worldwide. The theory serves as a framework for

the analysis of various leadership styles. The Model’s analysis is based on two main

criteria: how active or inactive the leaders are in fulfilling their roles, and how

effective or ineffective they are in performing their tasks and working with their

followers.6  The FRM can often be viewed as a ladder of leadership styles and is

divided into two leadership types: transactional leadership and transformational

leadership.

Transactional Leadership is a leadership style based on a mutual relation

between a leader and the subordinate. These processes are further marked by

situations in which both parties show interest in one another for one purpose - an

exchange of benefits, meaning that both the leader and the follower have something

to offer one another. Therefore, Transactional leadership suggests that

followers are encouraged by a system of punishment and rewards.

Transactional leadership consists of three levels of leadership: laissez-faire,

management by exception (divided into passive and active), and contingent

reward.7 Laissez-Faire, the lowest form of leadership also known as a non-leader,

occurs when the leader avoids taking responsibilities and

making decisions; the leader is uninvolved with the

subordinates and offers them no clear goals, expectations

or concern. As a result of this leadership style,

subordinates focus on their personal interests, even if it

harms the group or organization. The second level of

6 Bolden, R., Gosling, J, Marturano, A. and Dennison, A Review of leadership Theory And Competency Framework, Dansford, UK: 2003.P13.7

Transactional Leadership of FRM

1. Laissez-Faire2. MBE – passive &

active3. Contingent

Reward

transactional leadership is Management by Exception. Management by Exception

(“MBE”) is a conservative approach based on managing and taking corrective

action, which can be taken either passively or actively. Leaders who do not

anticipate problems and only react once a problem has occurred are described as

MBE passive; MBE active leaders actively monitor subordinates and take

corrective actions before the error occurs. Nonetheless, subordinates of MBE

passive and active leaders react to their leaders through fear of the leaders

reaction in a situation where something goes wrong. The highest level a leader

can achieve in transactional leadership is contingent rewards. The level of

contingent rewards occurs when subordinates are familiar with the organization’s

goals and are rewarded when they are achieved. The leaders define clear and

concise goals and actively participate in the achievement of these goals. When the

goals are met, the leader rewards the subordinates and similarly, when goals are

not met, the leader penalizes them.

James MacGreger Burns, who first introduced the concept in his book

“Leadership”, developed the transformational leadership theory. He referred to this

style as “a relationship of mutual stimulation and elevation that converts followers

into leaders and may convert leaders into moral agents”.8 Furthermore, it is

characterized by high effectiveness of the leaders (how effective they are) and their

heavy involvement in the process (how active they are).

According to Bernard Bass, who further developed Burns' transformational

leadership concept, transformational leadership “is closer to the prototype of

leadership that people have in mind when they describe their ideal leader, and it is

more likely to provide a role model with whom subordinates want to identify.” He

further describes that the process activates the subordinate’s higher-order needs

and increases their awareness of task importance and value. And, this idea is

different from Burns’ original concept in that it portrays transformational

leadership as a perpetual process between a leader and his/her subordinates.9

8 Bolden, R., Gosling, J, Marturano, A. and Dennison, A Review of leadership Theory And Competency Framework, Dansford, UK: 2003.P13.

9 Bolden, R., Gosling, J, Marturano, A. and Dennison, A Review of leadership Theory And Competency

Transformational leaders have an extraordinary effect on their subordinates;

they can motivate and inspire them, push them beyond their comfort zone, change

their attitudes and stimulate the curiosity and development of their subordinates.

Some famous transformational leaders are Mahatma Ghandi, Nelson Mandela,

Martin Luther King and Abraham Lincoln.

  Transformational Leadership is divided into four elements: intellectual

stimulation, individualized consideration, inspirational motivation, and idealized

influence.10 The lowest level on of transformational

leadership is intellectual stimulation. Intellectual

stimulation occurs with leaders who consider his/her

subordinates’ ideas and perspectives. The leader

focuses on the subordinates’ ability to grow

intellectually through challenging current processes,

creating new solutions to existing problems, using

creativity in their work, and solving their own problems at work. Individualized

consideration, the second level of transformational leadership, focuses more on

each of the individual subordinates, rather than group as a whole. In these

situations, leaders supervise each subordinate separately and guide each according

to his/her abilities. Additionally, leaders concentrate on revealing the potential of

individuals by providing a supportive environment. Leaders also delegate tasks to

subordinates tailored specifically to each of their abilities and skill levels. The third

level of transformational leadership, inspirational motivation, provides a clear

vision of the organization’s future goals and motivates the subordinates to want to

achieve these goals; additionally it stretches the limits of what is perceived as

possible and, in turn, makes subordinates feel that the new goals are achievable.

One of the most defining factors of this style is that the leader unites the

subordinates’ personal vision with the organization’s vision, ultimately making

them work together towards achieving the common goals. Finally, the highest level

on the transformational leadership ladder is idealized influence. Idealized influence

Framework, Dansford, UK: 2003.P13.

10

Transformational Leadership for FRM

1. Intellectual Stimulation2. Individual Consideration3. Inspirational Motivation

describes a situation in which the leader is considered the role model for the

subordinates, and the subordinates tend to trust, respect and admire the leader. In

this type of leadership, the subordinates are overwhelmed by the leader’s charisma

and therefore actively support the leader. Leaders who reach this level of

leadership also have high ethical and moral standards. This is the level of

leadership that most leaders aspire to reach. Many leaders can progress along the

leadership style ladder, while others may stay at one level of leadership indefinitely.

An analysis of Coach Carter through the lens of the Full Range Model of

Leadership reveals that Coach Carter operates at several levels along the range,

employing both transactional and transformational behaviors. Our scene begins as

the members of the team enter the library, unaware of why their regularly

scheduled basketball practice was cancelled, or why the gym doors have been

chained and locked shut. Over-confident and reeling from an undefeated record of

basketball games, team members are surprised to encounter a no-nonsense shout of

“Quiet!” from Coach Carter, to bring the surprise gathering quickly to order.

  Straight to business, Coach Carter begins, “Gentlemen, in this hand, I hold

contracts signed by me and signed by you. In [the other] hand, I hold academic

progress reports filled out by your teachers.” The contracts to which Coach Carter

refers were signed by each member as a condition of their participation on the

basketball team, and stipulate that the athletes maintain a 2.3 grade point average,

attend all classes, and wear jackets and ties on game days. Carter proceeds to rattle

off a list of dismal academic performance statistics, all of which lead him to conclude

that that team has failed to uphold its agreement. He determines that the

consequence of such a failure is to discontinue basketball practices and lock-down

the gym until academic performance is improved.

In doing so, Coach Carter demonstrates transactional behaviors: contingent-

reward bordering on MBE-Passive, depending on the point of view. In his decision

to enact a clear and decisive penalty in response to the breech of agreed-upon

expectations, Coach Carter’s perspective is one of contingent-reward: simply put,

each action has an anticipated consequence, in this case, punishment. However, the

team perceives it as being MBE-Passive. From their perspective, Coach Carter is

being overly critical and is overreacting to a minor fault, while disregarding the

outstanding achievements of the team on the basketball court.

Overall, however, the “transactional” insistence on upholding academic

contracts is just a means towards a “transformational” end; and is part of Coach

Carter’s persistent overriding vision of uniting his team of student athletes and

giving them a chance at a meaningful future.

  In true charismatic communicative style, a feature of Inspirational

Motivation, Carter’s address opens with a Sensing orientation; focusing on the

papers in his hand, the six players who are failing at least one class and the eight

players getting ‘incompletes’ based on attendance. Only then does he shift to

Intuiting as he discusses broad implications for the team’s future. We observe that

Coach Carter respectfully addresses the team as ‘gentlemen’ and the individuals as

‘sir,’ as part of his continued embodiment of Idealized Influence – walking the walk,

talking the talk. He insists that the team, himself included, bear a collective

responsibility for its failure to uphold the contracts: “Gentlemen, you have failed to

uphold – no, I’m sorry – we have failed. We have failed each other.” 

Coach Carter demonstrates Inspirational Motivation in his unwavering,

optimistic belief that the team can, with the proper collective focus and external

support, successfully meet the terms of their contracts and fully embody the dual-

role of student-athletes. “Know that we are a team,” he reminds them, and enlists

the help of his fellow teachers, “so that we can reach our goals,” thus empowering

them to achieve this vision. Carter makes clear that team performance outweighs

individual performance: just as one player does not score all the points for the team,

one player’s high GPA does not exempt him from accountability with regard to the

team’s academic performance. 

The impact of Coach Carter’s mix of transactional and transformational

approaches is epitomized by Cruz's outburst: “I killed myself for you, Sir, to get back

on the team!” This player had initially had to complete a nearly impossible set of

contingent-reward tasks in order to earn his place back on the team; and over time,

bought into the vision inspired by Coach Carter’s leadership. Towards the end of

our scene, we see the vision actively promoted and shouldered collectively by all

team members: they have finally appropriated the vision and begin to pursue it

independently of their leader. The team members, of their own accord, choose to

use practice time for studying, even after the lock-down has been revoked by the

School Board. This is the mark of Coach Carter’s successful leadership.  

Ultimately, we can see that the mix of transactional and transformational

leadership behaviors employed by Coach Carter does not span the entire full range

model. Rather, in our selected scenes, the behaviors exhibited represent MBE-

Passive (as perceived by the team), Contingent-Reward, Inspirational Motivation

and Idealized Influence. Laissez-faire, MBE-Active, Individualized Consideration

and Intellectual Stimulation are not featured. (Even though the task at hand

involved academic pursuit, it is not an embodiment of Intellectual Stimulation;

which is most notably associated with the idea of encouraging followers to challenge

their leaders and think for themselves about how to accomplish tasks.) With his

own special cocktail of leadership behaviors, Coach Carter managed to transform

and lead his team toward greatness: in their academic responsibilities, athletic

performances and future endeavors.

The Full Range Model enables us to dissect and categorize the different

elements of Coach Carter’s “leadership cocktail.” As noted, we see elements of

Contingent Reward, Inspirational Motivation and Idealized Influence. However, this

model doesn’t necessarily help us to understand why these specific behaviors were

chosen and not others from the range. Was Coach Carter successful because he

chose these specific elements, or would any combination of transactional and

transformational behaviors have sufficed? Is it an arbitrary choice, perhaps based

on Coach Carter’s own comfort zone of behaviors? Or does it have something to do

with the situation at hand and the followers in question? It would seem that these

questions can best be answered by returning to the Situational Leadership Theory.

This would support the case that Coach Carter’s choice of leader behaviors were

based on his assessment of the followers, and indicated his best response given this

assessment.

As we have shown in the empirical analysis of the movie, each theory has

some limitations and therefore can be criticized in several ways. The situational

leadership theory can only explain one part of the observed transition – how the

followers became much more able during the course of the scene (mostly physical

strength and endurance practice) - however, it does not fully explain the change in

the attitude and willingness of the followers. By adopting the telling style, the Coach

made the whole team study hard and perform better, but it could not make the team

members more willing. In order to explain this transformation we needed to

analyze the movie according to the full range model of leadership.

The full range model of leadership, though spanning a range of different

leader behaviors, fails to explain the exact reason why Coach Carter chooses certain

leadership styles from both the transactional and transformational ranges. This

limitation of the full range model forces us to refer back to the situational leadership

theory to for an explanation. The situational leadership provides us with the

understanding that, based on the readiness and willingness of followers, leaders

must adapt their own leadership approach. It can be said, therefore, that the

relationship between the two theories is complementary in nature: the limitations

of one theory will lead to the search for answers within the other and vice-versa.

The final conclusion is that we need both theories in order to effectively and

holistically analyze the scene of our movie: each theory alone cannot fully explain all

its nuances. The use of one theory will leave the viewer with questions that cannot

be answered without the supplemental analysis that the other theory provides.

 

 

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