Leadership Styles In Coach Carter

Leadership styles depend on every person in a leadership role. Depending on the mission or goal, each style can be helpful in its own diverse way. A transformational leader is a leader who works to inspire others to do more than they are most comfortable with. They must be able to realize change and know how to inflict change for success. In Clint Eastwood’s Invictus and Thomas Carter Coach Carter, both protagonists Nelson Mandela and Ken Carter demonstrate their transformational leadership skills to create change for the people around them. Coach Carter had a goal to be able to inspire the players in his basketball team, into believing that they can achieve far more than they had imagined, for themselves in real life. Whereas Nelson Mandela had a goal to be able to inspire a Rugby team in order to reunite a nation torn apart due to racial discrimination. Thus, transformational leaders are able to inspire others around them to step out of their comfort zones in order to achieve their high potentials and are able to indicate change and know exactly how to inflict it.

Transformational leaders show passion in their work and have the capacity to inspire others. Coach Carter is successful in achieving this by setting clear expectations and demonstrates inspiration in his players to achieve their full potential but not just in the ball court but also in real life and in academics. At their first team meeting, Coach Carter hands each student a contract, setting out his expectations of the contracts. If they do not sign and follow it, they do not play. “ This contract states that you will maintain a 2.3 grade point average, you will attend all your classes and you will see sit in the front row of those classes” (Carter). These conditions of the contract created controversy with the students and their parents but Coach Carter aims to pass on his passion to the players enabling them to succeed in playing sports and succeed in their education. Coach Carter works to challenge the team by encouraging them to take ownership of their work and to understand their strengths and how to use them to be successful. Coach Carter also shows the characteristics of a transformation leader, when he makes the whole team “suffer together and then triumph together”. Transformational leaders like Coach Carter believe that the success of a team firstly comes from the success of all the team members. Due to this, transformational leaders believe it is important to carry everyone forward in order to achieve true success. “I came to coach Basketball players and instead you become students. I came to teach boys but you turned into men” (Carter). Coach Carter was able to successfully inspire and impact each of the baseball teams lives for the better due to his transforaminal leadership in the contracts strategies and helping make everyone come to the realization they were meant for more in the future. Therefore, Transformational leaders show passion in their work and have the capacity to inspire others, Coach Carter was able to demonstrate his success with this leadership style when it was used to bring up the team’s GPA to give them an opportunity to be able to have an option to go to college aside from only focusing on pursuing in career in basketball. Due to Coach Carter’s ability to influence and inspire others helped give the team a challenge to accomplish and strengthened themselves all through the basketball season and find success in the future.

Transformational Leaders encourage, inspires and motivate people to succeed. Nelson Mandela’s exemplifies a transformational leader due to his ultimate goal of reuniting, and inspiring a nation struggling to become resilient towards the racial discrimination happening in South Africa through sport. During his time in office, Nelson Mandela connected with Springbok captain Francois Pienaar and the rugby team in his best efforts motivated the team to win the World Cup. His ability to inspire shows a high level of emotional intelligence, self-awareness, confidence and motivational skills. Mandela throughout his time as the president of South Africa wanted to inflict change by reuniting the nation of South Africa and keeping the good relations between the whites and blacks. The 1995 Rugby World Cup hosted by South Africa became an unlikely opportunity for Mandela to restore harmony in the country. The blacks community in South Africa despised the springboks South Africa’s rugby team. To them, it is seen as a symbol of white oppression. Only the white community supported the rugby team whereas the black community only supported the opposite team. Mandela believed that if he could inspire and courage the Springboks to win the tournament would ultimately lead to all the people in South Africa to support the team as a nation, thus bringing the nation together. Mandela comes to influence François into realizing the significant change the Springboks win to South Africa. Mandela believed in leading by example and by inspiration from the work of others, he proceeded to achieve his goal by not only uniting a nation through a rugby team, but he also would accommodate to the needs of everyone. When Mandela Stepped into office a lot of people who worked in the government were unhappy and wanted to resign from their jobs, Mandela saw and took action to this problem by holding a meeting and asking each individual what he can do to make them stay. Mandela’s philosophy of leadership connected to him being a transformational leader due to his ability to inspire others for not to only be their best but to become even better than they thought they could. Nelson Mandela was able to inspire the Springboks team and captain Francois to win the world up and help them maintain focus all throughout the tournament, and Mandela was able to demonstrate the care and needs to others around him as all great leaders do.

In conclusion, A transformational leader is a leader who works to inspire others to do more than they are most comfortable with. They must be able to realize change and know how to inflict change for success. In Clint Eastwood’s Invictus and Thomas Carter Coach Carter, both protagonists Nelson Mandela and Ken Carter demonstrate their transformational leadership skills to create change for the people around them and inspire them to do great things. Coach Carter and Nelson Mandela were able to influence and inspire the people around them in the best efforts to make a change for good. Coach Carter is successful in achieving this by setting clear expectations and inspires his players to achieve their full potential in basketball as well as the students’ education. Nelson Mandela washes able to find success in reuniting the country of South Africa with his ability to inspire the rugby team to win the world cup and being mindful of others. Thus transformational leaders are capable of being motivators others around them and tend to seek ways to create great change.