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.
The leadership theories and methods discussion points in this research are positional power, conflict resolution, leader/co-leader relationship, international framework (leader-follower-situation), and environmental shifts as a reason to restructure. Also, we will discuss Maslow hierarchy of needs (Hughes, Ginnett, Curphy, 2006) and the four frames to evaluate change i.e. the structural frame, the human resource frame, the political frame, and symbolic frame.
The movie “Remember the Titans” revolves around two coaches named Herman Boone and Bill Yoast and how their integration of the first desegregated football team united a segregated town through the success high school football team. This process required highly effective leadership skills. From the beginning of the movie, leadership was apparently obvious. There was a riot over the death of an African American citizen. Coach Yoast actively prevented members of his football team from entering the confrontation. When his players went to participate in the riot, he used his positional power (Bolman, Deal, 2003) to intervene and disrupt their involvement.
Conflict Resolution and the ability to effectively manage it can make a huge difference with the success and failure of any process. To pacify the riot, the school board desegregated one of its high schools named T.C. Williams High School and placed an experienced African American coach Named Coach Boone as head coach. The original coach,