Remember the Titans

Re: Remember the Titans

The major leaders of this film each have very contrasting leadership styles. Coach Boone is portrayed as being an autocratic leader that makes decisions based on his sole opinion and forethought, while the other coach (Yoast) takes a more laisez-fair form of leadership in the sense that he allows the team captain to make many decisions. As for the team captain, Gary, he approaches leadership with a more centralized decision-making process (as seen when he cuts a player off the team). However, Gary is seen to take a few others’ opinions into consideration (he asks Boone if he can cut the player from the team) and thus can be categorized as being in the middle ground of democratic and autocratic leadership.

From a personal standpoint, I feel as if Boone’s approach to leadership was more successful. I believe this for two reasons; the first being that his autocratic decision-making initiated actions (pairing blacks and whites together) that while being contrary to popular opinion, was able to overcome the team’s internal conflict of racism; the second reason being that Boone was able to make the Titans train much harder then they would have under a democratic or laisez-fair rule.

One of the major underlying civil conflicts within the movie was that of racism and prejudice. Such beliefs were held by both members of the white and black community. However, Boone made sure that both sides of the conflict were able to get to know one another (ex: dorm rooms with blacks and whites) which would later on, created a mutual respect that allowed the Titans to be so successful. By the end of the film, the beliefs and values of both races in the community (as well as within the team) were that of acceptance and judging people not by the color of their skin, but my the content of their character and actions.

The ideals portrayed within film work to depict some of the responsibilities of