Case Study 1: College Basketball Leaders

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This case study aims to take an in-depth look at two hall of fame college basketball coaches; Coach Bob Knight from Indiana and Coach Mike Krzyzewski (Coach K) from Duke. Both coaches have different leadership styles, traits, and factors that will be examined to find commonalities and what makes them successful. This article will look first into determining leadership perspective, then the coaches power basis, followed by management versus leadership styles, and finally examining traits and personality factors. In examining the leadership perspectives of trait versus process leadership and applying that to the two coaches, both coaches fall more in line with the process leadership argument. One could easily argue that the leadership traits both coaches exhibit are natural and what help them rise to the fame they have achieved; this may be true but then that argument also implies that leadership is born and not made. Taking a closer look at these coaches reveals however that so many of their former players have become great coaches and professional athletes. If their leadership was only trait based then were they just fortunate enough to have recruited so many natural leaders? A good example Snook, Perlow, & Delacey (2005) give is when Coach Knight was fired from Indiana he went to coach Texas Tech who were without a winning record in four year. Coach Knight turned the team of players he did not recruit into a winning team during his first year there. The answer favors the argument that these coaches leadership was a process and was learned and passed on to the next generation of players and coaches. When studying what power bases both coaches have, they tend to fall in both realms of the two major kinds of power; position power and personal power. The common ground between the two coaches is they both had legitimate power based upon their position as the head

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