Topic > The film "Coach Carter": Analysis of leadership in high-performance teams

Index IntroductionCoach Carter: scene analysisScene 1: Coach Carter meets the players (9 m)Scene 2: Parental resistance (20 m) Scene 3: Damien Carter enters the gym (25m)Scene 4: Timo Cruz returns to the gym (33m)Scene 5: Junior Battle leaves (52m)Scene 6: Gym lockdown (1h 22m)Scene 7: Team meeting in the library (1h 27m)Scene 8: Council meeting to end the lockout (1h 39m)Scene 9: The Performing Stage (1h 44m)Scene 10: The Last Game (2h 8m)ConclusionWorks CitedIntroductionCoach Carter is an American drama film released in 2005 It is based on a true story of Ken Carter, who takes the job as Richmond High School's basketball coach and becomes famous in 1999 for benching his undefeated team due to poor academic performance. He realizes that the team members had a poor attitude, lack of respect for teammates, and poor basketball technique and stamina. Therefore, he decides to impose a mandatory contract on players that requires good academic performance, a dress code, respectful behavior and rigorous commitment to the game. After some initial resistance from the players, the team begins to grow and becomes undefeated in the new season. However, due to the players' ignorance towards academic grades, the coach decides to lock the gym. He also cancels games until the team shows noticeable improvement in academic performance, further outrageing the players, school management and community. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Coach Carter takes a stand for his decisions and convinces the players to endure a vision for the future and have a balance in life. It also engages with school management and the community to inspire change in the education system. The team becomes a high-performance team by showing equal commitment to academics and basketball. The coach eventually finds that he has completely transformed the team's mentality and congratulates everyone on the team's effort. The film begins with a basketball game between Richmond High School and St. Francis High School. The Richmond Oilers perform noticeably poorly and depict poor sportsmanship. Ken Carter is offered a job as the head coach of the Richmond High School basketball team, the school where he himself played and achieved great success. Even though the job provided him with a low salary, he decides to accept it. Before officially accepting the offer, watch the team play against St. Francis High School. He soon recognizes that the team lacks discipline and respect for teammates. An effective quality of a leader is that he understands the strengths and weaknesses of his team. Evaluate the team based on its composition and dynamics. Such analysis is critical when building a team because team members often fail to realize their role within the team. This prevents teams, even with good athletes and a good leader, from becoming a high-performance team. Coach Carter: scene analysis Scene 1: Coach Carter meets the players (9 m) The new coach Ken Carter arrives at the gym together with the former coach and immediately finds himself faced with ignorance and lack of respect from the team . The former coach had failed in managing the team due to the players' lack of authority and discipline. Coach Carter asks players to respect their teammates by calling them "gentlemen" and to do the same to him.He then establishes the team's ground rules and players are asked to sign a mandatory contract agreeing to terms such as maintaining a 2.3 point average, wearing ties on game days, attending all classes, etc. The coach has adopted autocratic leadership. There was no involvement of the players when developing the rules or the contract they had to follow. This leadership style was necessary as the players were not well educated, not disciplined and did not respond to the former coach's orders. THE coach's power has been questioned by players like Timo Cruz, which is often observed in such a team environment. These are the silent leaders who often resist change, reject the authority of others, and try to take control of the team. Two top scorers from last season have left the team and the coach makes it clear that he cares about the team's performance and not individuals. The fundamental principle he teaches players is that the team is always superior to the individual. Basketball legend Michael Jordon said, “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.” Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, says, “No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy is, if you play alone, you will always lose to a team.” In this way Coach Carter began the task of transforming a group of individuals into high-performance teams. The first phase of the team's development was taking shape, in which after initial resistance the players tried to understand the coach's way of working. This phase also saw some characteristics of the storming phase, in which players challenged the coach's authority over the group. Silent leaders like Jaron Wills (Worms) and Jason Lyle were impatient and skeptical about the new rules and struggled with others to understand their relevance to them. Scene 2: Parental Resistance (20m) The coach decides to involve the parents in his decisions for the students. He asks them to sign the contract accepting the terms and his way of operating. Most parents disputed his methods as they did not agree with the importance of maintaining a 2.3 grade point average in the player's academic life. Parents claimed that "basketball is life for their children." The coach wants to target this mentality of parents and asks them to have a vision of college education for their children. Mindset is the way you are programmed to think, to make meaning and therefore also to act. It refers to structure and culture. In general terms, it is the characteristic of mental attitude that determines how you will interpret or respond to situations. Because Richmond's African community was reluctant towards education, they had a mindset that education is secondary. The Coach, therefore, adopts an action mentality here, engaging parents to foster change within the community. Try to convince them to maintain a direction, a vision for their children. Remind everyone that playing basketball in high school may not guarantee players social success in their lives, but along with academic excellence, basketball can help students get into college. And that's why players are called "student" athletes. The coach's action mentality seeks to achieve a combination of both strategies; namely academic excellence and winning basketball thus maintaining a balance in a student's life. He understands what should be preserved and what should be changed.Scene 3: Damien Carter enters the gym (25 m)Damien Carter, the coach's son, arrives with someminute late to the gym on his first day. He received the same treatment from the coach that his teammates would have and was asked to perform push-ups and suicides. This was the right approach from the coach, judging each player on similar grounds without any preferential treatment. A leader is respected within the team if he treats everyone fairly and equally. Treating his son like all the other players was an important leadership quality. Scene 4: Timo Cruz returns to the gym (33 m) Cruz returns to the gym and expresses his desire to play for the team again. Keeping his behavior in mind, instead of directly rejecting him, the coach asks him to complete a huge series of push-ups and suicides. It also imposes a time constraint on the task, which makes it impossible to complete. This is an important characteristic of an authoritarian leader, where the coach teaches Cruz and other team members that every action has consequences. The consequence can be a reward or a punishment and each player on the team must manage the consequences of his actions. Meanwhile, as Cruz finishes his playing time, the coach congratulates him on his effort. He realizes that Cruz is far from the goal and therefore refuses him to integrate into the team. The coach may have been faced with the dilemma of whether to reward Cruz for his exceptional effort or be fair and stick to his goals. After that, the players of the team express the desire to complete the remaining task for Cruz, thereby achieving the goal and accepting Timo Cruz into the team. Thanks to this act, the coach achieved significant results as a leader. First, he managed to establish discipline and his authority as a leader. Secondly, he managed to transform a group of individuals into a responsible team. Jason Lyle's dialogue in this scene is clear of team bonding: “We're a team. One person struggles, we all struggle. One person triumphs, we will all triumph” This phase is called norming. At this stage, teams begin to work together and understand the strength and importance of a team. However, this is an unstable phase as a team may move into the storming phase if a problem occurs. As the team matures, they begin to value others' opinions, manage conflicts effectively, and respect teammates. Furthermore, the team is now able to express open criticism and thus tries to move forward with a common goal. Scene 5: Junior Battle leaves (52 m) Coach Carter realizes that the team's players are not living up to their contract by attending all classes. Confront the team about this issue and remind them once again of the vision for future college education. Young Battle is asked about his absenteeism in class for which he had no concrete excuse. Therefore, the coach suspends him from the team. By resisting the coach's decision he leaves and disrespects the team and the coach. An important characteristic of a leader is regularly evaluating the team's commitment. This way he can exercise situational leadership more effectively. Such leadership effectively considers the team member's maturity and competence which are often overlooked. Each individual has different skills and it is not adequate to perform all tasks even with a good leader. In this situation, the team was performing well in games but ignoring academics. Therefore, the coach again exercises his authority to maintain direction and stay true to goals. On the other hand, the coach constantly tries to help the students have a futuristic vision to which the players are ignorant.Good leaders often try to think about what is positive for the team's development and success, even if followers find it irrelevant. As Steve Jobs rightly said in a Business Week interview in 1997, “A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them.” results of all the players, the coach decides to lock the gym. This comes after the team successfully won the Baywatch High School championship. He summons the players to the library and confronts them about their low academic results. It once again offers players a way out if they demonstrate a commitment to academics. This type of leadership is different from the autocratic style. It is the coercive leadership style. The coach makes the most radical decisions by closing the gym because he had no choice. A good leader uses coercive power only as a last resort because it can increase the resistance of his peers and ultimately weaken the leader. The leader who can adopt a coercive leadership style effectively when required has a unique “action logic”: the Individualist. Action logic is how leaders interpret their surroundings and react when their power or security is challenged. Leaders with the individualistic action logic are aware of possible conflicts, however, they see them as an opportunity to change or succeed. This encourages them to use their coercive power when necessary, which sometimes leads to misunderstandings with top managers or even subordinates. This use of coercive power by Coach Carter drew much resistance from parents, the community, and school management. The coach now holds a middle management role in which he answers to the school management (top) and to the players and parents (bottom). Since it is important for middle managers to maintain their independence to avoid tear situations, the coach initially answered all questions and remained stationary on his stand during the lockout.Scene 7: Team meeting in the library (1h 27min) As the lockout was intensifying and more serious with media attention and board involvement, the coach took time to have an open discussion with the team. This was done so that players could discuss their grievances and debate the need for the block. The coach honestly presents his opinions to all the players and promises them that he will do his best to get all the players into college if they show commitment. This phase is called a storm. During this stage of team development, people disagree and sometimes blame the leader for devising a false strategy. The leader's wisdom is questioned and the team may become defensive and hesitant to take the next step. Silent leaders clash with the team and the leader, creating instability and chaos. At this stage the leader must practice active listening, investigate and understand differences and provide an open platform for discussion. Communication within the team is vital for success, and furthermore, team members need to understand and embrace the change they are going through, which could be possible through honest and open communication. Scene 8: Council meeting to end the lockout (1h 39') The Council meeting was organized to understand the reasons behind a radical decision by the coach to close the gym. Coach Carter presents his point of view on the issue and highlights the idea of ​​bringing about a change in society. The Council also seeks the opinion of parents before voting. The decision against the lockout is made and