Coach Clark: It's Not About Winning. It's About Getting Better

by Holly Schroth


This article describes the leadership style of Coach Jack Clark, under whose leadership Cal Rugby has won 21 national championships during the last 25 years. The article examines his leadership philosophy and strategies to create a high performance team culture. It discusses how his experiences as an athlete and businessman helped shape his approach to leading and developing teams. He cites the importance of good recruitment practices, setting expectations, constant performance feedback, managing conflict, and having a shared definition of leadership as keys factors to a successful team. In 2010, Clark faced a series of unprecedented challenges, including having his team downgraded from varsity to club status because of budget cuts. This article describes how he addressed these challenges. Please note: this case also has two supplementary cases available. The (B) and (C) supplements can be found using product numbers B674 and B675.

Learning Objectives


To challenge students' most fundamental assumptions about leading others using a sports coach as an example.

Details

Pub Date: Nov 30, 2011

Discipline: General Management

Subjects: Negotiation, Budgeting, Leadership, Teams, Operations & processes

Product #: B5673-PDF-ENG

Industry: Professional sports teams & organizations

Geography: United States, California

Length: 14 page(s)


Berkeley Haas Case Series
Berkeley Haas Case Series The Berkeley Haas Case Series is a collection of business case studies written by faculty members at the Haas School of Business. Cases are conceived, developed, written, and published throughout the year, on subjects ranging from entrepreneurship and strategy to finance and marketing. Each case includes a teaching note for use in the classroom.

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