Coach K and His Leadership Style 1

Coach K and His Leadership Style

Jianqiao Shen

Boston University

AD 643

Prof. Stephen A. Leybourne

Table of Contents

Abstract..............................................................................................................................3

Introduction........................................................................................................................4

A Legend in Collegiate Sports..........................................................................................4

Transactional Leadership..................................................................................................5

Transformational Leadership...........................................................................................6

Inspiring Motivation Over Manipulation........................................................................7

Leadership Personality......................................................................................................7

Emotional Intelligence.......................................................................................................7

Summary............................................................................................................................8

References...........................................................................................................................9
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Abstract

Leadership is one of the most critical traits for a leader of motivating a group of people to act

toward achieving a shared goal. Mike Krzyzewski, otherwise known as the Coach K, is

recognized as one of the greatest sports coaches of all time, leading the Duke men’s basketball

team and U.S. National men’s basketball team over a few decades. Focusing on the transactional

and the transformational leadership styles, this article will offer a thorough analysis on Mike

Krzyzewski’s leadership philosophy and offer a thorough analysis

Introduction

The definition of a good leader may vary in different settings, and there’s different

leadership styles adopted by leaders in various industries. In all categories of sports, especially

team sports, the coach is considered to be the leader on and off the court who plays a critical role

to the team performance. The in-game performance of a coach is rather obviously recognized,

but people often overlook the contributions of the coach to the effectiveness of a team’s

performance off the court. In terms of the leadership style, typically, people would assume that a

head coach of a sports team is likely to adopt the transactional leadership, which focuses on

structure, results, rewards, penalties, and subordinations. However, taking a close look at Coach

K’s career, one can notice that he manages to switch between transactional and transformational

styles of leadership, and he embraces inclusiveness, relationship building, flexibility and team

dynamics all the time (Delacey, Perlow, & Snook, 2005).

A Legend in Collegiate Sports

Mike Krzyzewski, known as Coach K, is a legend in collegiate sports who has served as

the head coach at Duke University for 40 years with 5 NCAA Division 1 titles, 12 Final Fours

and 15 ACC championships. In addition to his amazing record in NCAA, he has also coached the

United States men’s national basketball team, which earned 3 gold medals during his time. He is

the highest-paid head coach in college basketball that he makes $8.98 million per year in salary.

Duke’s Fuqua School of Business has a Center of Leadership and Ethics is named after Mike

Krzyzewski, who has also written 5 books on leadership. Coach K has become more than just a

coach, but an expert in terms of leadership.

Transactional Leadership

By implanting both transactional and transformational leaderships, Coach K successfully

switch between the two styles time to time to maintain the competitiveness of his team.

According to the book Transactional Leadership, the author Bass proposed that “the

transformational leadership on one side of the leadership spectrum, while the transactional

leadership on the other end” (Bass &Riggio, 2006). In addition, the book also addresses that

transactional behaviors are often effective to help followers detect, recognize, and correct

mistakes.

To some extent, coaching a sports team is much like leading an army that both

organizations have clear structure and goals. Players playing on courts and soldiers battling on

fields all have these intense moments that they have to believe someone and follow his

command. Through using active management by exception, which is the fundamental element of

transactional leadership that widely used in the military, Coach K has successfully built up the

foundation of his leadership style. As a basketball coach, observing players’ actions, whether

good or bad, is so critical. Sometimes, by using both active and passive management by

exception, he either takes corrective actions before things go wrong or giving instructions when

problems become serious.

Another powerful weapon that Coach K uses is contingent reward, which is defined as

those given for performing an activity well, matching a standard of excellence, or surpassing a

specific criterion (Ryan, Mims, &Koestner, 1983). During games or practices, Coach K

extensively use verbal encouragement to reinforce positive actions. When asked about the team

dynamic of his team, he said “For culture to really be substantive and sustain, you need to
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empower people at every level. Everyone is important, everyone has ownership and everyone

has the opportunity to lead” (Fuqua School of Business, 2018).

In addition to management by exception and contingent reward, Coach K sets standards

for his team to maintain its competitiveness. When asked about how he sets rules and standards

for his team, he refers standards as a weapon to develop a climate where fosters trust while

remaining a certain level of flexibility.

Transformational Leadership

Having only transactional leading behaviors certainly cannot make Coach K the best

coach in collegiate sports history. As an exceptional leader proven by his spectacular career,

Mike Krzyzewski knows how to build the best team dynamics by setting standards,

implementing active-management by exception, and offering contingent reward. Bass refers to

these transactional leadership behaviors as an “augmentation effect”, whereby the

transformational leadership build upon. According to Bass and Riggio, transformational

leadership “is manifested when a leader’s behaviors elevate followers’ self-worth and

confidence, help them to develop skills, as we as achieve high standard of performance” (Bass

&Riggio, 2006). Coach K is inspiring, visionary and engaging throughout his career that he

emphasizes on exploring individual potential. Burns defines transformational leader as a person

who “seeks to satisfy higher needs and engages the full potential of the follower” (Burns, 1978).

Mike Kacyvenski is definitely a charismatic transformational leader who leads by

examples, inspiring communication, and conveying his vision. In his book, he says that “almost

everything in leadership comes back to relationships. The only way you can possibly lead people

is to understand people. And the best way to understand them is to get to know them better and
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they also know what kind of person you are” (Krzyzewski & Phillips, 2004). Instead of using the

coach identity as his source of power, Krzyzewski takes advantage of his charisma to build a

close and effective coach-athlete relationship.

Inspiring Motivation Over Manipulation

By favoring inspiring over manipulating, Coach K gives his athletes the autonomy that he

encourages them to think harder about their performance and how to elevate it. Different from

other traditional coaches who “employ an intimidation and semi-dictatorship style, which

required others to conform to his way of thinking” (Delacey, Perlow, & Snook, 2005), Coach K

sees inspirational motivation as the most powerful element in his leadership style. Inspiration

helps athletes to achieve the goal they shared with the team and constantly progress in a

competitive environment.

Leadership Personality

Out of the five personality factors, Northouse believes that “the extraversion carries the

highest positive associativity with effective leadership, this was followed by conscientious,

openness and low levels of neuroticism” (Zentner, 2015). Throughout his career, Krzyzewski

exhibits strong agreeableness, openness and conscientious. These traits are so important in terms

of creating a trusting coach-athletes relationship and uplifting their performance.

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence is defined as the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and

those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions we in ourselves and in our
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relationship. Being a coach, Krzyzewski values awareness of others the most out of the four

components in emotional intelligence, which has huge influence on his ability to coach and

mentor others. According to Hampson, “in sport, empathy and communication strategies as well

as team cohesion and collective efficacy are interpersonal and group processes respectively that

have been found to function as mediators within the context of coach-athlete relationship”

(Hampson, 2012). Basketball is a competitive sport that young players often get emotional either

in a good manner or not. After loses and failures, he would help those young players to get rid of

frustration and all other negative emotions and get ready for the next game.

Summary

As one of the greatest sports coaches and leaders of all time, Mike Krzyzewski exhibits

incredibly well-managed leadership style while not limiting it to one certain style. Instead, he

comfortably switches between the transformational and transactional leadership styles to

maintain his team performance at a such high level. By setting standards, managing by

exception, and offering contingent reward, he uses transactional leadership behaviors to

constantly build up an energetic yet effective team environment. Based on this team atmosphere,

he mentors his athletes to achieve their shared goal with inspiration and motivation.
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References

Bass, B. M., & Riggio, R. E. (2006). Transformational Leadership. Lawrence Erlbaum

Associates. Mahwah, New Jersey.

Burns, J. M. (1978). Leadership. New York, NY: Harper & Row.

Delacey, B. J., Perlow, L. A., & Snook, S. A. (2005). Coach K: A Matter of the Heart. Harvard

Business School Cases, 1.

Hampson, R., & Jowett, S. (2014). Effects of coach leadership and coach-athlete relationship on

collective efficacy. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 24(2).

Krzyzewski, M., & Phillips, D. T. (2004). Leading with the Heart. New York, NY: Grant Central

Publishing.
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Ryan, R. M., Mims, V., & Koestner, R. (1983). Relation of reward contingency and interpersonal

context to intrinsic motivation: A review and test using cognitive evaluation theory. Journal of

Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 736–750.

Fuqua School of Business. (2018). Leadership Lessons from Coach K. Retrieved October 27,

2020, from https://www.fuqua.duke.edu/duke-fuqua-insights/coach-k-dss

Burns, J. M. (1978). Leadership. New York, NY: Harper & Row.

Zentner, A. (2015). Outside of the Lines: A Comparison of Leadership Styles of Two Collegiate

Athletic Coaches. SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2625895