Coach Knight

1. Discuss and compare each leader's style, applying ideas from the leadership models in this week's lecture.

Leadership Style of Coach Bob Knight:

The leadership of Coach Bob Knight is very well defined in the title of the HBR paper “The Will to Win”. The key takeaways from the paper summarize the leader ship style of Coach Knight as follows:

• Coach Bob Knight was assertive and aggressive in his coaching techniques.
• Had a colorful personality.
• Antagonize the Players: Coach Knight looked for more than the best a player could do i.e. pushing the players to their limits.
• Used profane/abusive language and was angry at times.
• Task Oriented that is he was assertive to his teams to get the job done.
• Coach Knights visionary leadership and his ability to make team players idolize and follow him blindly created great players and proteges/coaches like Mike Krzyzewski, Isiah Thomas, and Mike Woodson.

Based on the traits listed above I would classify Coach Bob Knight as a Charismatic leader, who exerted powerful effects through his confidence and clearly articulated his long term vision in such a way that his followers idolized him as a leader. Coach Knight can also be described as Transformational leader as he was able to find a resonance with moral values of his followers and he could inspire his followers to transcend their own self-interest in the basketball game.

Based on Coach Knight’s fixed leadership Style, I would categorize Coach Knight under Fiedlers Contingency Model with low LPC (Least Preferred Coworker) score, having  high control over his teams with good leader member relations, highly structured task and strong position power.

Leadership Style of Coach Mike Krzyzewski:

The leadership of Coach Mike Krzyzewski is very well defined in the title of the HBR paper “Coach K: A Matter of the Heart”.  The key takeaways from the paper summarize the leader ship style of Coach Krzyzewski as follows:

• Coach K. had a highly family oriented approach and provided unconditional love/support to his team members as one does for family. Per Coach Mike Krzyzewski: “People have to be given the freedom to show the heart they possess. I think it’s a leader’s responsibility to provide that type of freedom. And I believe it can be done through relationship and family. Because if a team is a real family, its members want to show their hearts.”
• Coach K. did curse his players on the side lines of basketball courts.
• Spoke like a true leader and gave motivational speeches to his teams.
• Trusted his players and truly built teams with imbibing his team players that no one can do it alone that is sum of team score is greater than sum of individual scores.
• Creating fear amongst players was not a prime motivator for Coach K.
• As people normally think that money trumps tradition, but Coach K. had complete sense of belonging and ownership at Duke University. In year 2004 stayed at Duke University, giving up a 5 year, $ 40 million contract offer to leave Duke and coach Los Angeles Lakers of the National basketball Association. That speaks of the true character of the coach, who followed his passion and heart to lead Duke University, and not the money.

Based on the traits listed above I would classify Coach Mike Krzyzewski as an Inspirational leader, who emphasized symbolism, emotional appeal (family orientation) and extra ordinary follower commitment.  

Based on Coach Mike Krzyzewski’s   flexible leadership Style, I would categorize Coach Krzyzewski under Robert House’s Path Goal Contingency Model with low LPC (Least Preferred Coworker) score, as a people’s leader, having control over his teams with good leader member relations, medium structured task and strong position power.