Coach Knight

Organizational Behavior: Case Examination # 1

Coach Knight: The Will to Win

1. Describe Coach Knight’s leadership style. What are his assumptions about what motivates people? What are his assumptions about human nature? How do these assumptions influence his leadership style?

To understand what kind of leadership style Knight owns, we can find some clues from a conversation between Knight and his important mentor, Joe Lapchick. Lapchick asked him, “How important is it to you that people like you?” Knight responded, “I’d like to be respected as a coach, but I’m not concerned about being like.” Although Knight is viewed as a great coach in the history, he is also a coach full of controversies. What he cared is the victory of his basketball team and he can do anything, even it is inappropriate to express his desire to win. First, applying previously simple studies, Knight belongs to Job Centered in the Michigan study and belongs to initiating structure in the Ohio State study. Both these dimensions refer a leader who focuses on tasks rather than people, the subordinates. Second, in Fielder’s contingency model of leadership effectiveness, I suggest Knight is in situation Ⅰ. Obviously, Knight is a task-oriented leader (low LPC) in a favorable situation since he controlled everything in IU basketball program. Besides, he had strong leader position power and a basketball team he worked in should be an environment of structured tasks. Knight’s outstanding accomplishment can be a proof to conclude that he is an effective leader. Third, when it comes to more recent studies, how Knight led makes him more a transaction leader. He demonstrated active management-by-exception behavior to punish those who do not perform up to the standards. For example, he let star players stayed in the bench if they did not work hard and he grabbed players by the necks to show his unsatisfying with his players. However, to some extent, Knight also behaved like a transformational...