TEAMWORK AND LEADERSHIP IN REMEMBER THE TITANS
Introduction
The dynamics of teamwork and leadership can be seen throughout the film “Remember the Titans.” The advantages and disadvantages of teams, norms and cohesiveness, and the stages of team development, are exemplified on multiple occurrences. This report will analyze these dynamics and provide examples of how they are displayed in the film.
Advantages of Teams
Throughout the film, there were many instances of the advantages of being part of a team. In this next section, we will be looking at a few examples. Firstly, being part of a team allows members to bond, support one another, and build new friendships. This was evident in the various training scenes. The difficulties they faced
…show more content…
They had been assigned to room together, and got into a fight over their individual identities and what they thought should be on the walls of their room.
Behavioural Norms and Cohesiveness A behavioural norm is defined as the way(s) team members are expected to act. In “Remember the Titans”, it is set by the players. In the beginning of the movie, the players were on two separate teams before they merged, and wanted nothing to do with one another. They would segregate themselves any chance they got, and were constantly fighting with each other. At one point, some of the Caucasian players purposely were not blocking for Rev, the Native American quarterback. This showed a low level of cohesiveness. Cohesiveness is the extent to which team members are attracted to a team and motivated to remain part of it. In the beginning of the movie, the players were not acting like a team and did not want to play together or listen to the coaches of a different race. Therefore, they were exhibiting a low level of cohesiveness. Unlike in the beginning of the movie, the Titans were finally acting as a team. In the end, they began to encourage and support each other, spend time together outside of football, and build friendships. An example of the team showing high cohesiveness was when Louie Lastik and Blue Stanton called a team meeting late at night, and without the coaches. At first, a few of the players tried to leave the gymnasium, but Julius
This team actually started becoming a team after Coach Boone gave an inspiring speech at the graveyard in Gettysburg. That is when a team actually started to form. The speech was about the Civil War that happened at Gettysburg. He told the players to hear closely, because if they do, they can hear people saying things about killing their own brothers. He told the players that they have to stop fighting with one another and start thinking of each other as brothers and come together as a team and start seeing life in a different perspective. After that, they had plenty of practices and worked hard until they learned how to get along, and they finally did that. It was beautiful to watch them get along and become a team. They were becoming friends and would joke with one another in the locker rooms. Mostly everyone get along. Julius and Gary were becoming great friends, which was hard to believe, because they hated each other at first. Later on, they got a new player. He had long hair, and they called him "Sunshine". He was a quarterback and was the newest player on the mighty Titans. The team thought he was gay but he really wasn't.
Also working in a team give people the chance to be supportive with each other and help one another.
The second main social psychological principle illustrated in Remember the Titans is the idea of conformity. Conformity is defined as a type of social influence involving a change in belief of behavior in order to fit in with a group. In the beginning of the movie the two teams would not speak to one another. One scene in the movie that showed this was when the white team threatened to boycott the entire football team when they were told that their coach is black. They took two separate busses in the beginning. Along the movie when they did end up sharing busses they were still separated on the bus. The black team would sit on one side and the white team would sit on the other side.
To be a cohesive unit and a great team the Titans would have to learn to trust and respect each other. They would have to overcome their racial issues and differences. Coach Boone implements strategies in his attempt to bring the team together as a cohesive unit. These strategies include:
In team leadership, the Hill Model is stated by Northouse (2016) as “to simplify and clarify the complex nature of team leadership and to aid leadership decision making for team leaders and members” (p. 366). This model has several key concepts and practices that this paper will look at and exploit the aspect of influence and processes that people in a groups or teams interact and the force within the group acting to unit all the members or leadership functions. Whether traditional leadership of teams or groups with a formal leader or a self-directed group with no specific leader all benefit from an shared leadership with the attention and focus of all members on the groups process dynamics. This is more so the case in virtual teams benefiting from shared leadership. Team-based structures in organizations have several positive characteristics and are capable of increasing production, allocation and use of resources, effective on making decisions and problem solving, increased quality and services as well as, fluent innovation and creativity, as listed by Parker (as cited in Northhouse, 2016, p. 364).
After the T.C. William Titans started the season off at 7-0 the entire city started giving them positive feedback. Many restaurants were promoting their success with posters in their windows saying “Titans 7-0 and counting, all players eat free.” Prior to their success people were un-accepting of the whole integration issue. There was one instance where the owner of a restaurant kicked the players out because a group of both black and white players came in together and blacks weren’t allowed. Their success on the field helped them have positive results in their school and in their bi-racial community.
The film “Remember the Titans” is an important film because it focuses on the integration that took place in Alexandria, Virginia at T.C Williams High School. Before 1971, schools in Alexandria were not enforced to integrate. For the first time, a court ruled that three high schools, two Caucasian and one African American must integrate. At the beginning of the film, Sheryl Yoast, the assistant football coach’s daughter narrates that “Up until 1971, there was no race mixing.” In Virginia, while the movie develops, schools continued to be segregated for Caucasians. This disarray was pictured up until the unity through football was occurring. Football is a sport that requires teamwork and determination. If a team can’t get along because
A team is a type of organizational group with independent members. They share common goals and work together to meet these goals (Northouse, 2016). The organization where I work has teams at various levels for maximizing the success. These teams include, core teams, coordinating teams, patient aligned care team (PACT), contingency teams, ancillary teams, support and administration teams (Veterans Health Administration [VHA], 2015). Some of these teams have interdepartmental members while others have intradepartmental staff. Successful teams have a concrete blueprint and that contributes to their effective functioning. There are several factors that affect these teams irrespective of the level. The factors comprise the presence of a clear task, separation from non-team members, authority, and stability. The factors like working conditions, team process and bridging the gaps are concerns for the executive level. The complexity of the task, individual skills and their diverse specializations affect the selection of the team members. The team’s meaningful interactions decide their success. Independent teams can help promote friendly competition within the organization and lead to better staff performance. An efficient leader can design and launch an effective team through careful planning and selection of the right members. He/she keeps the factors that affect the success of the team in mind when designing the teams. The patient care units
Remember the Titans explores the idea of friendship through the use of camera angles and shots, props, body language and lighting. During the sequence when Gary and Julius are telling each other what they are doing wrong in the game, Yakin suggests that friendship promotes tolerance and acceptance, and empowers people to achieve their goals as well as overcome adversity. Yakin uses close up of the two players arguing, showing their frustration and anger toward each other. Julius tells Gary ‘Attitude reflects leadership.’ Taking his advice the next day, Gary and the others played well because they learned to play like an actual team. Yakin’s use of body language and facial expression has the effect of representing Gary and Julius’ anger toward one another, as both of them are frustrated
In the film ‘Remember the Titans’ directed by Boaz Yakin, the main characters of the Titans are introduced as a group to us in a scene shot in the gymnasium. This scene is when the team first meets the other prospective team members and develop their relationships with each other. Yakin uses this scene to show the tension and intimidation between the two separate teams, especially focusing in on the two coaches (Boone and Yoast) while giving the audience an idea of where their relationship stands. He uses four techniques to create this; blocking, sound effects, camera angles and dialogue do this.
Groups and teams are essential to current business objectives, so understanding how groups form and operate is a major focus of study in Organizational Behavior. The film Remember the Titans supplies a useful example for studying the life cycle of a group, as well as how external pressures can affect group formation and performance, both positively and negatively. Using details from the Titans growth and performance, we will discuss how conflicts affected the team, the effect of leadership on the group, the advantages and disadvantages of the particular demographic circumstances on the formation of the Titans, and how the team followed the general progression through the stages of group
The coaching staff at the newly racially integrated T.C. Williams high school was one that was assembled from different schools in segregated communities. Upon receiving their coaching positions, they did not yet have a unified culture of beliefs, assumptions, or feelings because they didn’t know each other and had not worked together.
This research will explain how different leadership theories directly were applied to situations in the movie “Remember the Titans”. Although only a few of the theories were available at the time, the individuals exhibited sound leadership and follower ship identified by modern research on leadership. This paper will visit several leadership theories and methods from respected sources and compare and contras some situations to current situations experienced with modern theories.
This paper shows the different leadership styles and how it can affect the team results. both the leaders try to motivate the team, one tries to motivate them extrinsically and the other one intrinsically. The paper says there is no right or wrong style of leadership, but a true leader motivates others to develop those leadership qualities in them and do better. This paper gives a description of the coaches and the team players who showed leadership qualities even in the most difficult situations because they knew that their team needs them. It also describes the contribution on these players in their victory. They forgot their difference and played as a team.There were no
Lewin developed a theory in the 1940’s which is still entirely valid today. He identified 3 key stages in change - Unfreeze- Change – refreeze. He likened this to a block of ice shaped as cube, in order to change it you must melt (unfreeze) it to make it ready for change, then as water it can be re-moulded (changed) then you can solidify it (refreeze).