Northouse, Leadership 9e
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Case 1.1: Open Mouth . . .
Case Synopsis and Analysis
As newly hired offensive coordinator, Coach Berger was interviewed by the student-led
school paper at Grand Valley State. His response to leadership questions posed in the
interview citing the accomplishments of Adolf Hitler’s “leadership” among others. When the
article was published, it created issues and the GVSU athletic department asked for the
online story comments to be taken down. The school paper initially obliged the request, but
then re-posted the comments. This forced the story to become viral and was picked up by
national media outlets and even late night television hosts. The coach eventually resigned a
week later citing bad judgement and remorse for the comments. This led to active changes at
GVSU to focus on more social justice-based curriculum.
The case study provides interesting opportunities to discuss leadership and morality. Students
can debate leadership acts and efforts and how the moral compass driving those acts and
efforts must be pointed in the “right” direction to be considered effective leadership. As the
teacher, be mindful of their biases regarding these leadership acts and efforts. Students may
want to argue “leadership is leadership, regardless of outcome.” Leadership for the greater
good of humankind is the key, otherwise it may be better qualified as pseudo-leadership.
Learning Objectives:
Students will understand the morality found in effective leadership.
Students will recognize the differences between leadership and pseudo-leadership.
Students will further understand how their bias impacts their world view.
Answers to Questions in the Text:
1. Who are the leaders in this situation? How would you describe their actions as leaders
based on the definition of leadership in this chapter?
The definition of leadership found in Chapter 1 is, in short, “when one can motivate
many to a common goal.” That is very denotative as there are 1,000’s of other
connotative definitions of the word “leadership.” Based on this text definition, the
leaders are the coach in question, the athletic department, the head coach, the
university administration, the school paper, the Hillel group leaders, and the national
media outlets. The actions of all of these individuals reflect effective leadership
prowess and efficacy, after the situation was “viral.” The coach who was interviewed,
while his choice of words was “poor” at best, did choose to remove himself from the
situation to allow the focus to be on the student athletes and their development. The
coach clearly aligned leadership to any leader rather than focusing on leaders who do
so with a moral lens, for the greater good of all. Try to keep discussion on the greater
good. An effective leader might easily lead his group, but if the leader leads them off
a cliff to their death – that is not effective leadership.
full download please contact
full download please contact
Case 1.1: Open Mouth . . .
Case Synopsis and Analysis
As newly hired offensive coordinator, Coach Berger was interviewed by the student-led
school paper at Grand Valley State. His response to leadership questions posed in the
interview citing the accomplishments of Adolf Hitler’s “leadership” among others. When the
article was published, it created issues and the GVSU athletic department asked for the
online story comments to be taken down. The school paper initially obliged the request, but
then re-posted the comments. This forced the story to become viral and was picked up by
national media outlets and even late night television hosts. The coach eventually resigned a
week later citing bad judgement and remorse for the comments. This led to active changes at
GVSU to focus on more social justice-based curriculum.
The case study provides interesting opportunities to discuss leadership and morality. Students
can debate leadership acts and efforts and how the moral compass driving those acts and
efforts must be pointed in the “right” direction to be considered effective leadership. As the
teacher, be mindful of their biases regarding these leadership acts and efforts. Students may
want to argue “leadership is leadership, regardless of outcome.” Leadership for the greater
good of humankind is the key, otherwise it may be better qualified as pseudo-leadership.
Learning Objectives:
Students will understand the morality found in effective leadership.
Students will recognize the differences between leadership and pseudo-leadership.
Students will further understand how their bias impacts their world view.
Answers to Questions in the Text:
1. Who are the leaders in this situation? How would you describe their actions as leaders
based on the definition of leadership in this chapter?
The definition of leadership found in Chapter 1 is, in short, “when one can motivate
many to a common goal.” That is very denotative as there are 1,000’s of other
connotative definitions of the word “leadership.” Based on this text definition, the
leaders are the coach in question, the athletic department, the head coach, the
university administration, the school paper, the Hillel group leaders, and the national
media outlets. The actions of all of these individuals reflect effective leadership
prowess and efficacy, after the situation was “viral.” The coach who was interviewed,
while his choice of words was “poor” at best, did choose to remove himself from the
situation to allow the focus to be on the student athletes and their development. The
coach clearly aligned leadership to any leader rather than focusing on leaders who do
so with a moral lens, for the greater good of all. Try to keep discussion on the greater
good. An effective leader might easily lead his group, but if the leader leads them off
a cliff to their death – that is not effective leadership.
full download please contact
