Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Date of Graduation
Spring 2018
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA)
Department
School of Accounting
Advisor(s)
Luis Betancourt
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the extent to which the leaders of the Eta Delta chapter of Beta Alpha Psi (BAP) and the JMU Women’s Rugby club embody the characteristics of the leaders of successful organizations by examining these two organizations in the context of the characteristics of successful organizational cultures. In order to conduct an appropriate examination of the cultures of these two organizations, I chose to compare them to the characteristics of successful group cultures presented in Daniel Coyle’s The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups. Throughout his book, Coyle highlights the characteristics that define and distinguish organizations that experience short-term success from those who are successful in the long-term. These characteristics are derived from numerous examples of successful groups that range from SEAL Team Six to Zappos, from the San Antonio Spurs to IDEO, and from the Upright Citizens Brigade to the New Zealand All-Blacks. In each of these diverse groups, Coyle identifies cultural traits that distinguish these successful organizations from their contemporaries. He then combines these traits to form a comprehensive framework of a successful organizational culture, and bases the structure of this book on a discussion and analysis of his discoveries. Coyle also incorporates the personality traits of the organizations’ leaders into his discussion, and successfully draws connections between leadership styles that, at a distance, seem poles apart from one another but when examined in closer detail, prove to be oriented towards reaching the same overarching goals. The layout of this paper models the layout of Coyle’s book in an attempt to mimic his discussion with that of my own experiences in BAP and JMU Women’s Rugby. By using this source to compare the structures, purposes, and cultures of these two organizations, as well as the role of the leadership team in each, I hope to conduct an adequate discussion and explanation of the differences in each of the organizations as a whole, as well as in the extent to which each required me to perform an effective leadership role compared to how Coyle describes such a role in The Culture Code.
Recommended Citation
McAnallen, Samantha, "The role of leadership in student organizations" (2018). Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019. 547.
https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/honors201019/547
