Remember The Titans

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Remember the Titans is a movie that follows the story of the forced integration of Virginia’s T.C. Williams High School and the leadership dynamics that took place. The integration causes a racial crisis in the community when the iconic football team’s beloved white coach, Coach Yoast is demoted to Defensive Coach while African American Coach Boone is hired into the Head Coach role. Racism within the community makes it difficult for either coach to succeed without taking the significant risks of a strong leader during this controversial time. The two coaches have very different leadership styles and different opinions regarding the forced integration. Coach Boone is a charismatic leader with the ability to use a coercive approach to coaching when needed and a collaborative approach when appropriate. His approach toward integration is to first break the players down by eliminating old thought patterns and egos and then rebuilding them as a team. Coach Yoast, an accommodating leader, must first adjust his role from Head Coach to that of an assistant and then determine if he is going to support the new coach or place his efforts into making sure that Boone fails. Yoast is further influenced by a secret deal with the School Board providing an unethical incentive for failure. This difference in leadership style leads to several confrontations between the players and the coaches. It becomes clear that integration will only happen with the coaching staff modeling the way. Coach Boone and Coach Yoast provide a good example of the difference between leaders and managers as discussed in the article “What Leaders Do”, by John Kotter. Managers are concerned with efficiency and maintaining routines. Leaders, help in the time of crisis, create opportunities for change, solve problems and build morale. A leader sees the vision and provides the support for the team to

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