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Shirley 's Leadership Style And Behavior

Decent Essays

The leadership process is a dynamic relationship between the leader, the followers, and the situation. Coach Shirley is a new basketball coach at Burke College. Shirley’s leadership style and behavior appear to conflict with the teams leadership expectations. The situation complicates a vision change due to the basketball team’s prior success and Coach Shirley’s lack of knowledge about the team. However, by shifting to a more participative leadership style, Shirley will improve leadership effectiveness, thus enabling her to incorporate a vision transformation. Accordingly, Shirley’s leadership style and situational factors are counterproductive to her attempt to implement transformational leadership.
Shirley’s Leadership Style and Behavior …show more content…

Structured leadership focuses on improving results through close monitoring performance and ignoring personal issues. Coach Shirley observed players, took notes, and ignored the co-captain’s suggestions, which demonstrates structured leadership behavior (Cohen, 2000).
Situational Factors in Shirley’s Leadership One major obstacle for Shirley is the situational factor in her leadership role. Cohen (2000) describe the coach is new to the school as well as coaching basketball. Shirley’s lack of information about the team’s former structured playing environment leaves her at a considerable disadvantage because the players were satisfied with a structured environment. Bethel University (2011) describes Shirley and her basketball team’s situational variables with Fiedler’s contingency model. The contingency model addresses what happens in unstructured situations regarding leadership. In fact, the contingency model suggests that players would prefer structure when exposed to an obscure environment like motion offense. In addition, the players are accustomed to routine tasks, which increase their need for direction when the tasks are changed (Bethel University, 2011).
Improving Leadership Coach Shirley’s leadership effectiveness rests upon her ability to initiate a more balanced leadership style. First, Shirley should adopt a way to predict the responses from her behavior. For example, Fiedler’s contingency model outlines

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