Northouse, Leadership 9e
SAGE Publications, 2021
Case 11.2: Taming Bacchus
Case Synopsis and Analysis
Dominic Santana, a serious Ultimate disc player, was disheartened because his college
ultimate disc team did not take the sport seriously. Together with his teammate, Harrison,
Dominic worked to turn the group from a “partying” team to a competitive one.
When Dominic and Harrison became co-captains of the team, they hired a stellar professional
athlete to work on skills and strategies with the players. This enhanced the players’ skills.
Dominic and Harrison also enhanced the players’ motivation by openly asking each member
to candidly discuss his or her personal goals for the team. Together, the players decided that
they wanted to do well enough at the sectional competition to obtain a berth at the national
collegiate competition.
Learning Objectives:
• Students should be able to recognize adaptive leadership in a given case study.
• Students should be able to analyze whether a leader’s behavior comports with
Answers to Questions in the Text:
1. What changes were Dominic and Harrison trying to make? How did these changes
affect the beliefs, attitudes, or values of the players?
2. Were the challenges the team faced technical, technical and adaptive, or adaptive?
What examples can you give to explain your answer?
The team faced technical and adaptive challenges. Adaptive challenges are problems
that are not clear-cut and cannot be solved by the leader’s authority or through the
normal ways of doing things in the organization. Adaptive challenges require that
3. Citing examples, explain how the captains engaged in each of these adaptive leader
behaviors: (1) get on the balcony, (2) identify adaptive challenges, (3) regulate
distress, (4) maintain disciplined attention, (5) give the work back to people, and (6)
protect leadership voices from below.
Get on the balcony: Dominic considered the problem from the balcony and saw that
players’ confidence technically so that the players could envision success as a team.
Then they collaborated on goals and objectives, hoping that the values might have
4. Describe the holding environment that the co-captains created for the team. Do you
think it was successful? Why or why not?
Creating a holding environment refers to establishing an atmosphere in which people
can feel safe tackling difficult problems, but not so much so that they can avoid the
Potential Teaching Approaches:
Northouse, Leadership 9e
SAGE Publications, 2021
Below is a way to structure a class based on Adaptive Leadership and Case Study 11.2:
• Hold a lecture on adaptive leadership.
• Students read Case 11.2.
• Discuss Questions 1–4 in the case study as a class.
• Finally, the professor may choose to conduct in-class exercises listed below.
Exercises for This Case Study:
1. Many students in your class will have worked on a play/production or been a member
of an athletic team similar to the disc team. In small groups, students should discuss
similar challenges that they may have faced and analyze their leader’s behavior. Was
their leader able to maneuver through adaptive change? Students should analyze how
2. Dominic and Harrison have now graduated and wanted to create a leadership
development program based on their experiences. What should that program look
3. Changing the culture of a team (in this case) or within any organization takes time
and effort. Ask students to reflect on the case as a member of the disc team. The