Leadership Course

Professor: Resan Kikava

Harvard business case: Coach Knight and Coach K

Team:

Mariam Shereshashvili
Mariam Khechuashvili
Tamuna Kevanishvili
Maia Modebadze
Doia Chakhtauri
Ali Bagheri

Tbilisi, Georgia
2020

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1. Compare and contrast Coach K and Coach Knight. How are they different? How are they similar?

Describe Coach K’s leadership style. What are his basic assumptions about motivation, leading and human
nature? •
Describe Coach Knight’s leadership style. What are his basic assumptions about motivation, leading and
human nature?

Firstly, different leadership styles may yield the same results in different contexts. Coach K and Coach Knight has
vastly different leadership styles. Coach K uses affiliate and democratic leadership. Through affiliate leadership, he
creates harmony and builds emotional bonds with his players through two-way communication. This is seen when he
would communicate up close and personal with his players by maintaining eye contact and showing them he cared. He
would also invite them over to his place for dinner and treated them like family. He also used democratic leadership by
getting valuable input from his players and get them to share with one another. Through this, he has managed to foster
strong bonds with and within the team and his leadership approach can be seen as authentic leadership, where “leaders
know who they are, know what they believe in and value, and act on those values and beliefs openly and candidly”
(Robbins and Judge, 2012). In the case of Coach K, family and love are one of his personal core values and he clearly
demonstrates this to his players.

Coach K’s affiliate and democratic leadership is vital in developing and maintain strong interpersonal relationships
with employees in the organization. When employees feel like their managers care about them, they are more likely to
be motivated to work. In addition, studies have shown that employees have greater allegiance to a company which
they believe cares for their well-being. However, this leadership style is not effective in all situations. The focus on
cultivating strong relationships may divert the leader from keeping tabs on the team’s performance, leading to a
deterioration in team performance. In contrast, Coach Knight uses coercive leadership. He demands immediate
compliance from his players and is highly driven to achieve. For instance, he demanded discipline and would throw
players out for not working hard enough. He would also hurl vulgarities at his team players. Despite his harsh
methods, players still respected him as he was a great coach who led the team to victory. Hence, despite the extreme
leadership styles of both coaches, there is no one single approach that would determine success in an organization. In
my opinion, leadership is subjective and dynamic and the adoption of specific leadership styles would depend on the
situation and context.

In my opinion, the use of coercive leadership would not be effective in getting people to work with you and is
only effective when there is a crisis that needs immediate attention. It will hurt the morale of the employees and they
will not be motivated to work. It could make employees feel like commodities where their emotional and mental well-
being are neglected. Human beings are emotional creatures and we seek emotional balance in various aspects of our
lives. Employees will hence find that this leadership style overbearing, thus causing the turnover rate for the firm to
increase.

2. Who is more effective? Why? Under what conditions would you hire Coach K? Coach Knight?

Both leader had theirs unique style and both of them was one of the best. For my mind coach K was more effective
because of his style. He was trying to create family atmosphere in team and every player feel his meaning in this team.
They become one who thing with one heart one blood and one aim. Coach K was one part of the whole and he try that
his player feels equality. I think that in our reality this type. Of leadership is more effective and with the emotions you
can made your team member to do something you want. Some people think that in this kind of teams is lack of
discipline because there is not strong hand of lead who made discipline in don’t agree with this opinion because in this
kind of teams discipline comes from respect of each other’s and the same interests and not forms strong hand of leader.
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If I want to build team with high responsible and high value I will hire coach K because his strategies and styles. This
kind of leadership can cover more field and build strong teams which has.one hart and the team.memebers are
connected to each other with emotions. But if I wanted to bold strong military team I hire coach knight because of his
love of discipline. In military situation discipline is everything and one of the most important thing. In this direction
emotions go itself and it is too strong and military is the field where you need less emotions and hit discipline. To some
up both of the leaders has his advantages and Theas effectiveness is depend. Of their working field.

3. Think of a time when someone else (manager/coach/teacher/parent) motivated you to perform at your best. Why
were they effective?

Over time, at each stage of parenting, the parent, teacher, lecturer, and manager will make a positive and negative
contribution to your experience. Negative errors may indicate a new path of correction. A parent trying to increase
your creativity with progressive methods who knows the right dosage between giving freedom and restricting balance
is the ideal coach. I ask Giorgi Maisashvili, the founder of the School of Leaders, how he inspired his own children,
that they were different from everyone else, that no matter what they did, they would do it at a high level. That he
saw in me a leader who had to learn from his mistakes. One of the tests of the School of Leaders was trustworthiness,
the level of which taught you to trust people blindly, because you can never determine what can be expected behind
the face you see.

The contribution of the lecturer in philosophy is crucial in shaping my best version, as it indirectly leveled in
the subconscious the values that have been the thoughts of famous philosophers for centuries. The favorite was
Friedrich Nietzsche's Zarathustra, if we think the lever was the link between the book and me. Why were
Friedrich Nietzsche's approaches effective? For humanity, the ability to rationalize and evaluate is an important
attribute. However, excessive emotionality makes a person feel dependent, which uniquely makes him weak
because he loses himself as a ruler. Nietzsche, as a leader, showed us by the example of his own life how he
loved the composer Wagner, that he even gave him an opera, and how much he felt a sense of dependence that
he had abandoned him. Nietzsche sought pain as an opportunity to elevate himself, and it was this excitement
that led to the emergence of new values. He taught us that you will become a superman only if you create your
own value and live in it, not as an obligation on your shoulders as a camel. But also a child delightful and
creative. Remember his approach that the real Zarathustra should not be locked up in the mountains, but should
be revived. Why did God die? It is a parallel in outdated values that people do not like change. Independence is
an important feature of a leader. You have to see the surface sometimes, so you don't have to go deep, which
means you don't have to lose the whole picture. Leaders do exactly what they are afraid of. Nietzsche became
strong on the basis of pain. By doing so, we are even moving towards the learned truth that we have as much
experience as the mistakes on our shoulders. The current logic has given me the risk of slipping out of
Amsterdam if I hadn’t become a looser. Because philosophy is spiritual nourishment, and the success of a leader
is determined by a large share of empathy, by analyzing those present, the factors influencing them, and the
ability to make decisions.

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