Kurt Warner Case Study

1) Kurt Warner was by all accounts an average athlete – he was never the physical stud that “carried” a team to a championship as some would say – rather through hard work, practice and excellent managerial skills he was able to lead his teams to championships. As such he displayed the traits of a competent leader, both building teams, and driving those teams of athletes to individual peak performance and positive results. A prime example of his ability to get results from those under him was his mentorship of Larry Fitzgerald upon his arrival to the Arizona Cardinals. When Larry had made his first Pro-Bowl and was beginning to get complacent and perhaps plateau, confident in the sense that he had made it. Kurt asked, “Larry, don’t you …show more content…
I’m good enough.” Kurt defined this as an enlightening moment where he realized, “this is why I came to Arizona, I came here to establish something that’s bigger than good enough, I wanted to help these guys understand what it looked like in practice, what it looked like in the meeting room, what it looked like to be the best.” In route to this ambition, according to Fitzgerald, Kurt demonstrated an ability to tailor his leadership style to each individual, “depending on [ones] personality he knows how to tweak you, so if you’re a guy that can’t deal with being criticized then he’s not going to do it, he’s gonna pat you on the butt, … (however) if you’re a guy that needs to get jumped on he’ll do …show more content…
The expert power base came into play the more Kurt played the game, however having spent four seasons across arena football and the NFL Europe League before ever being rostered on his first NFL team, Kurt Warner brought experience to that team that most NFL rookies would have never had. By his time with the Giants and in Arizona, Kurt’s expert power base had expanded due to his two Super Bowls with the Rams, and the type of big game and post-season experience that can only come with such seasons. Kurt Warner’s power base also included referent power, a prime example of Kurt’s ability to develop referent power was mentioned above in the case of the muffed snap, and his desire to keep the ire of the offensive coordinator away from the center. Another example of referent power is when after Kurt’s orchestration of a game winning drive late in the fourth quarter Marshall Faulk came over to the bench and made a heart on his chest indicating his love for Kurt. The final component of Kurt Warner’s power base is that of legitimate power. As the quarterback Kurt had an inherent level of power over the team. As in Eisenhower’s example with pulling versus pushing the string, Warner led from the front in the Rams versus Detroit game, challenging his offensive line and receiving corps to make individual plays, so he as the quarterback could do his job. All three