Introduction
This paper provides a review of a movie named “Training day” and critique of the movie in the light of the RLR and RLP theories of leadership. Denzel Washington is the main character in the movie “training day” who acts some leader. His made up name is Alonzo. He is a rebellious leader who has some villainous characteristics inside him. Alonzo is a cop in the Los Angeles police department. He always displays some unusual attributes while he is on duty.
Critique of the Movie
As a matter of fact, Alonzo is of the view that justice is not served on the court or the governmental buildings but somewhere else as he quotes that every criminal commits a crime outside the ambit of the law, and he would be dealt in the same place. Being influenced by this idea, whenever he finds someone doing the unlawful or nasty thing, he apparently serves the justice at the same time and in the same place by beating him. As his behaviors shows that Alonzo was subjected to severe mental illness or exhaustion that led him to do such things in his workplace. He believed that governmental organizations are not meant to serve the right justice. They are as fractured by nature as their laws. They let loose the criminals so they can commit multiple crimes to sabotage the society (Ebert, 2001).
He established that sending a criminal to a detention facility would be a futile exercise rather he must be killed or punished at the same time. If it is not done so, they will thrive in the society and will continue to bedevil the social apparatus with the passage of time. Lately, Alonzo, the main character under discussion is allocated a white guy for training under his supervision. The white guy joins the police department with some positive intentions. He always dreams of getting an early promotion as he wanted to move his family to nicer place or to give them a place better to live. As massively affected by the negative factors, Alonzo tries to teach him the same attributes he is having in himself. At first, he allows “Jake” the white man to watch him doing things in the workplace. While he was on duty, both found some guys raping a girl. The latter was screaming for help. Jake was looking at Alonzo’s reaction to the outstanding situation (Training Day, 2001).
Alonzo gets infuriated and instead of arresting those punks, he beats them to the extent that they start bleeding at the spot. Jake while looking at the situation gets threatened as he is the trainee guy in the field. As a matter of fact, the main character, Alonzo, shows some problems within his personality as well as the governmental institutions which fell short at dispensing justice. He found that the violent means of treating such kind of people could be the best solution. How surprising is the fact that environment influences many things around. It shapes the behavior of the people, orchestrates their ideas, manipulates their opinions and directs them in a unique way. A city, full of evil forces can have a glaring effect on the other noble forces (Training Day, 2001).
Behavioral Characters Shape Leadership
Police as a security department always deal with evil forces which sometimes engulf it too in some manner. Alonzo is the best example of such case. The city Los ageless, full of robbers and nasty things gets the main leader of the films profoundly influenced by them. Resultantly, Alonzo shows his behavior which is arguably evil in nature. The stakeholders of the movie are left with multiple questions. The viewers are of different kinds some are like Jake, who thinks that law is the superior thing, and we all must abide by it. On the other hand, some viewers may share some characteristics with Alonzo, who believe that these criminals must get the punishment irrespective of the judicial nature of the crime. Indirectly, they show their allegiance to the extra-judicial killings of criminals under the unlawful custody of the security officials. Some people while expressing their views on a cyber-platform said that sometimes the residents of a certain society are sometimes cannot be fully protected by it law enforcement agencies. Such a situation necessitates the existence of the person like Alonzo to perform such activities.
Unethical Behavior of the Lead
Some cited that the main character opted for the wrong way to deal with the wrong people. In fact, the Alonzo was emphasizing upon the street justice. He deemed that enemy dwells beyond the boundaries of law so he can be treated accordingly. The way he went for was brutal, violent and hostile. Many people also think that the movie is made after being inspired by real life incidents. Sometimes nation owe to the criminal cops like Alonzo, who are corrupt in the eyes of the law, but their foul play is helping others ultimately (Retallick & Fink, 2002, p. 101).
Aggressive Leadership Traits
The movie takes a strange and pushes all the viewers in wonder when the violent leadership style of the Alonzo affects Jake. The latter is always accompanied by the former. The evil cop tries to expose the nasty things of the underworld to his partner who is highly likely to gain some considerable effect from his teacher. This phenomenon raises many questions that whether the trainee cop is turned into the same criminal like police official or will fell apart from such kind of acts (Chamber, Drysdale & Hughes, 2010, p. 262).
Dominance of the Traits
Many people might have inferred many conclusions relevant to their mindsets but as the movie turned another wondrous turn when Jake was ordered to kill a person. It was the point when Jake had to decide his fate. If the act soothed his personality and made him feel pleasured after shooting, Jake would become successful in turning himself into Alonzo. It means that the Alonzo’s personality traits have overcome that of the Jake (Ebert, 2001).
Explanation of Theories
There are some theories that help to describe the nature or leadership being exercised by the character in the movie. RLP is an acronym for responsible leadership for performance. As a matter of fact, the theories of leadership do not help to tell about some certain relationship, but they are aimed at describing the results and performance at the end. Before defining the theories, one must explain the very concept of leadership to refer it in the right manner. Leadership involves the process of transforming inputs into some outputs with the interference of some individuals and groups. It seems imperative to mention that a leadership is always exercised to accomplish some goals and objectives (Chamber, Drysdale & Hughes, 2010, p. 265)
Responsibilities of the Leader
A true leader is to formulate some strategies to achieve them in the long run of the short run. There is no denying the fact that leadership is coupled with some responsibilities which are to be shouldered by some individuals. The responsible leaders have some specific characteristics to accomplish those goals. He needs to have decision-making effective power, endurance at the time of distress and agony, characterized by the ethics (Spillane, 2012).
Performance of Leadership Traits
The RLP theory is highly concerned with the performance of the leadership qualities. It also describes the challenges of the leadership styles while performing the duty. It is important to note that responsible leadership for performance is not merely concentrated on the attributes of the leader, but it also encompasses the environmental conditions. These circumstances take into account the internal and external factors which also affect the certain relationship (Lynham & Chermack, 2006, p. 75).
Relation of Theories to the Movie
In the case of the movie, Alonzo, as described earlier have some violent attributes which he exercises in the daily life. As a matter of fact, he exhibits some unprecedented and unusual characteristics while exercising his duty. He was negative at delivering his responsibilities on the workplace. He was the leader whose leadership is the sheer harm to the society in one sense (Hamilton & Bean, 2005, p. 339).
Dual Faced Leadership Approach
Moreover, Alonzo has a positive aspect for some people of the society. In a nutshell, Alonzo is responsible for his negative work he was committed to providing the extra-judicial performance on the streets. His performance is negatively related to the general standards of the society. He lacks the ethics which are widely accepted in the social fabric. Therefore, he has been proved to be the bad leader in the society. The persons like Jake who are likely to be affected by the personality of the Alonzo get some negative qualities in response. It was proved in the movie that Alonzo is using the leadership that is bad enough to lead in the society. The outputs he was yielding were very harmful to the society (Hitt, 2003).
Impact of Environment on Leadership
However, the most important aspect of the theory is that the leader is most likely to be affected by the environmental conditions around. In the case of the movie, it is the also the significant factor in the character case of the leadership. As we discussed earlier, Alonzo’s life have passed through some conditions which are conducive the violation and brutalism. Therefore, he displayed the characteristics of this ilk. Later on, Jake was the person who was the follower of the Alonzo. He was in the process of changing his lifestyle by that of the Alonzo as we recall that the latter ordered him to kill someone. Now, as common sense suggests that he had killed that person, he would have been shaped in that environment. Hence, the movie truly exemplifies the definition of the theory.
Societal Aspect
The relational facet of the leadership theory is also most important as it is concerned with the society. This perspective is pertinent to the followers and the devotees a leader yields after exercising his duty in the society. As a matter of fact, the leadership is built with the help of the followers. Without the people led, there is no existence of the leadership. The theory stipulates that the leader faces some relational challenges while he is on the duty. In a general view, the stakeholders in the leadership of a corporation, many people are involved in it, for instance, suppliers, employees, distributors, customers and other people who have shared in the organization. Therefore, the CEO as the proposed leader of the organization tends to have some relationships with the people under his particular jurisdiction (Training Day, 2001).
Leader-Follower Relationship
In the case of the movie, the illustration of this concept can easily be shown in some sense. Now we are to define some relationship between the Alonzo and his trainee Jake. Both have some relationship while they are exercising. Alonzo was the leader, and Jake was the follower. Jake as conditioned by his duty, he has to follow the instructions of Alonzo. The leader showed some negative skills. On the other hand, the follower “Jake” had to adopt the orders by executing the things. When Alonzo took him many top places like to the drug lords, other bad people who are spoiling the fabric of the society, to hit send family and some other places which were considered to be bad for the training of the Jake. In response, Jake watched all these acts and presumed in his mind that life is actually like this phenomenon. Later, he will act same as Alonzo on his duty. He may be providing justice on the streets, killing people on the spot, beating them instead of arresting them as by the law (Gampes et al, 2011).
Conclusion
The crux of the whole matter is that the most important aspects of the theory and the total discourse are the factors of the environment that are affecting form inside or outside the environment. IT can conjecture that these conditions to have some considerable effect on the personality of the both Alonzo and the Jake. The former might have faced this kind of factors around and got socialized in this society. The external factors could be the inability of the Los Angeles police or justice department to provide the required justice to the criminals. This inability and inefficiency of these institutions might have necessitated Alonzo to act in a certain way. Resultantly, his follower has the same characteristics in him.
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