Deck 8: Motivation and Leadership and Intercollegiate Athletics

Question 1

The NCAA's separate four-tier divisional classification system, established in 1971, acknowledged the existing disparity in institutional missions and goals relating to intercollegiate athletics. The separation created an opportunity for regular and post-season competition against similar schools, and established a more stratified approach to the awarding of athletically related financial assistance.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

According to B.F. Skinner, consequences that strengthen behavior include positive and negative reinforcement, and consequences that weaken behavior include punishment and extinction.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

One significant recent incident of rules violations occurred at the University of Southern California (USC), which involved actions surrounding its men's basketball program and the recruitment of O.J. Mayo. The school reported that because Mayo was involved with a booster who helped steer him to the school, and because former head coach Tim Floyd gave the booster $1,000 to funnel to Mayo. As a result, USC announced it would not participate in any postseason tournaments in 2010, reduce grants-in-aid and off-campus recruiting by coaches through 2011, return to the NCAA money earned through its 2008 Division I tournament appearance, and vacate all 21 victories earned while Mayo was on the squad. This is an example of goal theory of performance motivation.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

The true value of performance motivation theories is that, taken together, they provide clear direction on how to structure the work environment for high levels of performance. Four key factors - goals, training, incentives, and involving employees - help support performance motivation to contribute to the achievement of organizational success.

Question 5

Management scholar John Kotter stated that "Management is about coping with change. Its practices and procedures are largely a response to the emergence of large complex organizations in the twentieth century. Management … is about coping with complexity. More complexity always demands more management."

Question 6

Research on the leader as an individual suggests a strong direct relationship between the leader's level of expectations and followers' level of performance. According to this research, not only must the leader's assumptions about followers be accurate, the leader's expectations as to what the followers are capable of achieving must be as positive as possible.

Question 7

In some of the initial work on leader behavior, researchers suggested that leadership could be defined as a combination of two different kinds of behavior: task behavior and relations behavior. Task behavior is defined as leader behavior focusing on the design and completion of a specific task. In contrast, relations behavior focuses on satisfying the needs of the people performing the task and includes providing support and encouragement, answering questions, and problem solving with followers.

Question 8

Based on an extensive review of the leadership research then available, Blake and Mouton concluded that the most effective pattern or style of leadership combines high levels of concern both for people and production. They termed this high task/high relations behavior approach the team management style of leadership. From the Blake and Mouton Leadership Grid point of view, the task of management is to ensure that leaders have the skills necessary to implement the team management approach to leadership effectively.

Question 9

The contingency theory of leadership claims there is no "one best way" to lead or influence people, and that leadership style depends on the situation. Supporters of the contingency view point out that the team management approach represents only 60 percent of the success stories in the research on leadership styles. They say that many situations require leaders who are high-involvement team manager types. According to the contingency theory of leadership, different leadership styles are effective in different situations.

Question 10

Traditional models of leadership have been concerned with directing and supporting the performance of followers. These are what have been called transformational leadership, because the leader provides rewards, recognition, support, and direction as a part of an exchange for follower performance consistent with the organization's goals.

Question 11

Which of the following lists the correct information regarding the first intercollegiate athletic event?

A) A baseball game between teams from Amherst College and Bowdoin College in 1857.
B) A rowing match with boats from Harvard and Yale at Center Harbor on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire in 1852.
C) Annual contests such as "Bloody Monday" at Harvard.
D) A football game in 1869 between Princeton and Rutgers, with Rutgers prevailing, 6-4.

Question 12

Which of the following lists the correct order of succession in the top leadership post of the NCAA?

A) Myles Brand, Mark Emmert, Walter Byers, Richard Schultz, Cedric Dempsey.
B) Myles Brand, Walter Byers, Cedric Dempsey, Mark Emmert, Richard Schultz.
C) Walter Byers, Richard Schultz, Cedric Dempsey, Myles Brand, Mark Emmert.
D) Mark Emmert, Myles Brand, Cedric Dempsey, Richard Shultz, Walter Byers.

Question 13

In the mid-1990s, Trinity College president Evan Dobelle charged head coach Paul Assaiante with building a program good enough to take on the then-dominant Ivy League programs at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Dobelle said "I need to be able to walk into boardrooms and raise money and get people excited, because I'm trying to give this school a facelift and a morale boost. And the fact that you're competing with those schools is very important to me. And my question to you is how do we take it to the next level in that pond? … if the squash team wins the national championship against a Princeton or a Harvard or a Yale, that's very compelling." This is a specific example of Dobelle's efforts to employ which of the following performance motivation theories?

A) Expectancy theory
B) Goal theory
C) Needs theory
D) Reinforcement theory

Question 14

"Walk-ons" like Stephen Duckett and Joe Hughes, members of the men's basketball program at Xavier University, exemplify the efforts of those NCAA Division I and II student athletes who neither start nor even receive much, if any, playing time, and receive no athletically related financial aid for their efforts. These players are achieving social benefits from being part of a high-performing team, and both are achieving esteem by gaining the sense of respect first from their coaches, teammates and fans, which in turn trigger self-respect. This is a specific example of which of the following performance motivation theories?

A) Expectancy theory
B) Goal theory
C) Needs theory
D) Reinforcement theory

Question 15

In the case of the Horizon League and organizational success, Commissioner Jon LeCrone must perform his duties to benefit the operations of member schools. LeCrone says, "The successful commissioner needs to think about their own definition of success and pursue that, rather than have some other group - colleagues, conferences - define success for them. And that's what we have tried to do." This is an example of which of the four key elements for creating a high-performance work environment?

A) Goals
B) Training
C) Incentives
D) Involving employees

Question 16

A conference commissioner must provide leadership by engaging conference members. Says Horizon League commissioner Jon LeCrone: "Commissioners need to say to their members, 'Listen, I'd like to propose to you my definition of success. But I've gotten a definition of success by talking with you, and thinking about and vetting what I've heard. Do you think that if this is our approach, we could be successful? Could we all agree to this?'" This is an example of which of the four key elements for creating a high-performance work environment?

A) Goals
B) Training
C) Incentives
D) Involving employees

Question 17

From 1951 to 1987, the NCAA was headed by Walter Byers, who was responsible for much of the growth of the association. Early on, Byers was involved in establishing the association's enforcement capabilities as well as negotiating TV rights fees, an area in which Byers excelled. Byers was not afraid to take a hard line in talks, as was the case in 1981 when executives from the NBC TV network were trying to finalize a deal to keep the rights to the Division I men's basketball tournament. Byers' abruptness was not just a negotiating ploy, as it led to an opening of the bidding to other networks. CBS was quick to offer $48 million over the next three years (a 60 percent increase over the previous deal with NBC). Which of the following theories focusing on the psychology of leaders would have been able to predict Byers' success as the head of the NCAA?

A) Leadership and personality
B) Leader assumptions
C) The power of expectations
D) The power of vision

Question 18

In some of the initial work on leader behavior, researchers suggested that leadership could be defined as a combination of two different kinds of behavior: task behavior and relations behavior. Which of the following pairs lists only one type of task behavior?

A) Goal setting and organizing
B) Establishing time lines and communicating
C) Establishing time lines and controlling
D) Goal setting and controlling

Question 19

Former NCAA President Myles Brand launched a campaign for fiscal responsibility by looking to his former presidential colleagues to advance his vision for the future of college sports, as evidenced by The second-century imperatives: Presidential leadership - institutional accountability, a report released in 2006 by the NCAA's Presidential Task Force on the Future of Division I Athletics. This is an example of which of the five characteristics of transformational leaders?

A) They challenge the process.
B) They encourage the heart.
C) They inspire a shared vision.
D) They model the way.

Question 20

Scholar Howard Gardner identified four factors that he cites as crucial to the practice of effective leadership, each of which relates to the key function of communication. Gardner states that the relationship between leaders and followers must be ongoing, active, and dynamic, and leaders and followers must take cues from each other. Leaders and followers, says Gardner, must work together to build organizations that embody their common values. This type of connection and collaboration cannot occur without communication. The fact that current NCAA President Mark Emmert has been president at both the University of Washington and Louisiana State University, both members of the NCAA's Division I classification, and has also served as an administrator at several other NCAA D-I schools, including the University of Colorado and the University of Connecticut, is evidence of which of Gardner's four factors?

A) A certain rhythm of life.
B) A tie to followers.
C) An evident relation between stories and embodiments.
D) The centrality of choice.

Question 21

In the "Management exercise" at the end of the chapter, you were asked to consider which of the four performance motivation theories Larry Scott could adopt to promote the Pac-12's entrée into new forms of digital media and expanded media outlets. For this question, explain the basics of each of these theories, and explain which would aid Scott and the conference the most in stimulating fan growth in a sport other than football or men's basketball.

Question 22

Explain the four factors relating to putting theory into practice and the creation of a high performance work environment, and outline how Larry Scott would employ these techniques to promote fan growth in the sport you identified in Question 1.

Question 23

We learned from the chapter that the early research on leadership focused on the leader as a person, on the personality traits of the effective leader, on the leader's attitudes and assumptions, and on leaders' expectations of their followers. The underlying assumption was that if research could determine the kind of person who would be an effective leader, organizations might be better able to identify and select people with the greatest leadership potential. Using any of these research streams, explain how NCAA President Mark Emmert might be assessed as an effective leader of the association.

Question 24

We learned from the chapter that a second major focus of the research on leadership has been on the behaviors of the effective leader. In addition to studying the leader's personality, assumptions, and expectations, researchers have attempted to analyze and understand what the effective leader actually does. Using any of the research streams covered in this section, explain how Walter Byers served as an effective head of the NCAA.

Question 25

Virtually all the leader behaviors, practices, and skills presented in this chapter involve communication. Every leadership task - from providing direction, support, and encouragement to providing inspiration and meaning - can be accomplished only through effective communication. Using Gardner's four conditions for effective communication, explain how Myles Brand exhibited these conditions to excel as NCAA president commissioner.