Northouse, Leadership 8e
SAGE Publications, 2019
Case 12.3: Penn State Sex Abuse Scandal
Case Synopsis and Analysis
Joe Paterno was the head football coach at Penn State for 46 years and during that time, the
Nittany Lions racked up 409 victories and he was the most victorious coach in NCAA
football history. In 2011, a child sexual abuse scandal involving a former Penn State assistant
football coach brought down the coach, athletic director Tim Curley, the storied Penn State
football program, and also university President Spencer.
In 1977, Jerry Sandusky, the coach at the center of the child abuse scandal, established a
nonprofit organization called Second Mile, a home devoted to helping troubled boys.
Sandusky’s position and association with Penn State gave the charity credibility, but Second
Mile ultimately proved to be a cover and conduit for Sandusky’s sexual abuse of boys.
In 2008, the mother of a high school freshman reported to officials that her son was sexually
abused by Sandusky. Evidence was uncovered that this wasn’t the first time Sandusky had
been alleged of sexual abuse.
Learning objectives:
• Students should be able to apply principles of followership to leader behaviors.
Northouse, Leadership 8e
SAGE Publications, 2019
• Students should learn to apply Kelley’s typology to better understand the concepts
of followership.
Answers to questions in the text:
1. How would you describe the followership at Penn State? Who would you identify as
the followers? Who are the leaders?
The Penn State “followers” were blinded by the success of what appeared to be an
untouchable coach and an untouchable elite football program. The head coach
2. Using Kelley’s typology, how would you describe the follower styles for Schultz and
Curley? What about McQueary?
The followership style of Schultz and Curley appear to be near the “Bystander” stage.
The text states that bystanders “are aware of the leader’s intentions and actions but
3. How did followers in this case act in ways that contribute to the power of destructive
leaders and their goals? What was the debilitating impact their actions had on the
organization?
The followers put program before ethics and morals. By protecting the powerful and
ignoring the weak, the followers contributed to the goals of the football program and
Northouse, Leadership 8e
SAGE Publications, 2019
4. Based on Lipman-Blumen’s psychological factors that contribute to harmful
leadership, explain why those who could have reported Sandusky’s behaviors chose
not to.
1) Our Need For Reassuring Authority Figures.
2) Our Need For Security And Certainty.
There are many psychological reasons why a person would ignore this situation, none
of which match the concepts of ethical leadership. The basic theme as to why they
5. Based on the outcome, where did Paterno’s intentions go wrong? What ways could
followers have changed the moral climate at Penn State?
Paterno’s initial goal of marrying major college sports with athletics and morality
more than likely started out with good intentions. His intentions went wrong when he
6. In the end, who carries the burden of responsibility regarding the failure of Paterno’s
program—the leaders or the followers? Defend your answer.
Both. This was not a case of he said, she said. This was an established system of
Northouse, Leadership 8e
SAGE Publications, 2019
Potential teaching approaches:
Below is a way to structure a class based on Followership and Case Study 12.3:
• Hold a lecture on followership.
• Ask students to read Case 12.3 and answer the questions.
• Discuss the case study questions as a class.
• Finally, the professor may choose to conduct in-class exercises listed below.
Exercises for this case study:
1) In small groups, ask students to search for and find two to three recent articles
regarding this case. Ask students to outline and discuss three recent revelations
2) In a brief essay (200–250 words), explain what went wrong with this situation? Why
did followers (potentially good people at the time) choose to ignore this issue?