Monday, October 21, 2013

King of the Mountain

I coach a swim team that is a non-profit organization. The head coach of the swim team has no political ties (nor does he want to) within the community. I can see directly that his actions limit the size, resources, and functionality of the team. It could be said that he is in a leadership position and that he directly effects the decisions that over 50 families make on a day-to-day basis. I see people making decisions to spend more money and even relocate (physically move) because they do not like him. However, I also see people going way out of their way to receive coaching from him because they feel he is the best. Regardless of individual perspectives, there is a community that he leads and the collective efficacy is rather high within it. People listen to him and his suggestions are regarded as law quite frequently. I feel that if he connected more with individuals of politics, education, business within the community the team could see that he is a good coach and does have good intentions. With that being said, I also feel that no matter what the ties are that a leader has, the leader has to want what his followers want for the information that Sampson discusses in this chapter to be correct. What I mean is that for the social organization to stay highly persistent over time there must be high collective efficacy among everyone including the leader or the leader must be a good actor.


As far as my research for my presentation goes I am still trying to decide if ethics in business effecting success or community involvement effecting crime rates will be my topic. I have found a few articles for each but not as many as I would prefer for either. I have found the articles regarding ethics in business to be more entertaining which is leaning me toward that topic idea but it is not exactly what I was expecting to do from the start. I have always liked the idea of doing research related to preventing crime but with as many failed businesses are circulating now the articles I am finding may prove just as useful.

2 comments:

  1. I enjoyed how you provided a personal experience for your response. I could personally relate to your example because I swam for 4 years in high school. I hadn't given much thought to a team being a type of community, so I really liked that perspective. You made a great point at the end of the paragraph where you say "for the social organization to stay highly persistent over time there must be high collective efficacy among everyone including the leader or the leader must be a good actor." I can't help but think that the last part of that sentence might be a jab at politicians? Great response!

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  2. Coming from a small community where athletic coaches can have some of the strongest ties in the community, the correlation that you draw between your swim team and leadership is very interesting. Most of the points that you make I saw going through high school either exactly as you related, or something quite similar. The part where you talk about the leader having the same goal as those he is leading is also very true, oftentimes we see a leader who has a different end goal in mind than his "followers" and the consequences which this may result in.

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