Coach Carter Leadership Style Analysis

Transforming Leadership on the Court
The movie “Coach Carter” is based on the real-life story of Ken Carter who returns to his former high school to bring back the basketball team. This school was in an African American community, where graduating only occurred about half of the time. The school allowed the players to walk around like they were above the law and saw basketball as the best times of the lives of many of the players- not the potential of them to be successful in school, let alone graduate or go to college. Carter changed the lives of many by changing the expectations of the players, and transformed the lives of his players. Carter used many leadership styles in his approach, each one another tool to bring about change. Carter …show more content…
Carter used traits of the adaptive leadership style to break the boundaries with his players. Adaptive leadership is centered on the followers by focusing on how “leaders help others do the work they need to do, in order to adapt to the challenges they face (Northouse, 2015).” As previously mentioned, the chances of graduating and having a life that did not involve jail time was slim for the players, as their school and community did not see their potential and did not have the resources to help them succeed. As far as the school saw their role, it was to babysit the community teens until they were 18 and either dropped out, got pregnant or were arrested. This is why the school looked the other way when the players did not do the work or make the effort and acted “above the law.” College did not even seem like a possibility and the school and community wanted the players to have at least one positive and successful part of their life to be able to reflect back on. Carter did not see things this way, he felt that if he provided the tough love that the kids needed he could get them to realize their potential and regain control of their futures. To send that message, he gave them more responsibility that many believed they could handle and made it clear that there is a punishment for the poor behaviors. In this case, it meant that by breaking the contract and the trust, basketball would be taken away. It helped them to see that such behaviors in real life would have similar consequences and understand that nothing is life is just given to you, especially in an African American neighborhood, instead it would take hard work, effort and a