Question One
The poem focuses on the influence the captain on his crew. It is evident that the captain leads his crew by influencing them. As such, the captain can be said to be a transformative leader. There are various characteristic that are attributable to transformational leadership. First, a transformational leader sets out to empower the subjects thus encouraging the subjects to transcend their personal interest for the sake of common good. Second, transformational leaders are a role model to their subjects. As such, they are role models for their subjects hence the firm will tend to identify with such leaders. Third, transformational leaders are visionaries. The leaders share their vision with the subjects hence creating the road map of the objectives that are bound to be achieved. In addition, the vision unites the subjects and gives them a strong affiliation with the vision. Fourth, transformative leaders are agents of change that are responsible for giving new directions to the course of action whenever necessary. Finally, transformative leaders are involved in forming the culture of their subjects (Lipset, 2001: Lussier & Achua, 2013: Northouse, 2004).
Question Two
Bill Lumbergh merely gives instructions to his subordinates and expects the employee to do as they are told without question his instructions. Examining the scene where Bill Lumbergh asks peter, the main character in the movie office space, Lumbergh says, “I am going to need you to go ahead and come in tomorrow. 9 O’clock. That will be great” He starts to walk and suddenly stops and says “Oh, I almost forgot. I am going to your go ahead and come in on Sunday also” (ResoluteProductions, 2011). From this action, it is clear that the manager does not care what Peter does in his personal l life. He expects Peter to show up on Sunday and Saturday. It is clear that Lumberg uses power as his leadership instrument. Specifically, he uses the coercive and legitimate power to command his employee.
Peter knows that he cannot choose to ignore the instructions since Bill Lumbergh is his superior. As such, due to this fact, the decision to ignore the directive from a superior may amount to insubordination to Peter being punished for undermining the authority. Therefore, this shows that Bill Lumbergh also has coercive power since he can take disciplinary measures against Peter (Northouse, 2004). As such, Peter is bound to comply with the instructions.
Question Three
The coach takes the team on a run through the bushes to the location where the battle of Gettysburg occurred. The coach has identified that the greatest threat to his football success is the racial division among his players. As such, he sets out to overcome this challenge by telling a story about the Battle of Gettysburg where over $50,000 thousand men lost their lives fighting for the same reasons that were causing the division in the team (Mikedaquila, 2011). The speech was anchored to highlight the loss that comes from disunity based on elements that can be avoided.
The scene projects a situation in which the coach applies the path-goal theory. According to the theory, for a leader to steer the team to success, the leader must undertake the following roles namely motivate, support and help the team members. In order to achieve this, the leader must assist the team members in identifying their goal, clearing the obstacles and offering necessary reward in the course of the process. The speech reiterated the team objective, the obstacles that the team faced and reward that the team will gain from uniting. The action of the coach shows that he offers supportive leadership, directive leadership, participative leadership and achievement oriented leadership judging from the action that characterizes the run through the woods and the speech that the coach offers (Lipset, 2001: Lussier & Achua, 2013). The chosen leadership approach is effective in this context since the coach directly appeals to the player inner being through showing the good that the team will have done by uniting thus overcoming a challenge that cost the country over 50,000 men. The team’s unity advocates for a greater purpose in life where blacks and whites are viewed with the same lenses.
Behavioral leadership is also seen. According to the theory, a leader character is the best predictor of his leadership activities (Lussier & Achua, 2013). In this case, the coach has strong desire to develop a united team is highly motivating thus driving his effectiveness to motivate the players. As such, this makes the coach person’s oriented leader since he focuses on coaching, mentoring and encouraging the players to be better and shun the racism thus win the game.
Question Four
In the battle of the wits, the man in black challenges Vizzini to choose the goblet to drink from. After choosing, they would then drink where the one that drinks from the poisoned goblet drops dead. Unable to immediately choose, Vizzini makes back and forth argument about the possible logic associated with the challenge. He finally chooses and dies from the poison (Vecchiarelli, 2013).
Vizzini is highly intelligent and charming. Therefore, through the two traits, Vizzini hopes to capitalize and make the man in black to admire him hence attracting the man in black to follow his lead (Lipset, 2001). As a result, he scans the environment through giving an intelligent argument with the aim of finding a way to manipulate the man in black hoping that the manipulation will lead him (Vizzini) in identifying the poisoned goblet. Nonetheless, the attempt fails since regardless of what he chooses, was bound to die. In this situation, the leadership approach was ideal since it was only through the manipulation that he (Vizzini) would know the poisoned.
Question Five
Big Mike is not making progress as expected in the football training. As such, the mother steps in to push Big Mike to up his game and help the team improve its performance. In doing so, the mother tells mike to view the team as his family since mike has a high protective instinct to the people he cares about. Earlier, the coach had attempted to make Big Mike improve on his game but failed (MacPherson, 2011).
The mother uses Fiedler’s contingency theory. According to this theory, situational favorableness determines the effectiveness of the leader. The mother harnesses the three dimensions to impact on Big Mike. First, Big Mike trusts the mother and has high respect for her. Second, the task structure that Big Mike is engaging is well defined and he is highly aware of his responsibilities. Finally, the mother enjoys inherent power over Mike. As such, this increases the situation favorableness (Northouse, 2004)). Therefore, when the mother tells Big Mike to view the team as his family, these words ring a bell in Mikes mind hence, Mikes works on his performance in the game. Evidently, this is an ideal approach to leadership
The coach is seen to use the normative decision model. The coach makes a decision from his observation and communicates the decision to Big Mike about what he should be doing and how he should be doing it. The coach uses the wrong type of decision on Big Mike since mike works best when he is facilitated to do the best as opposed imposing decisions like the coach was doing. Therefore, the approach was good however the coach ought to offer specialized attention to each player which would assist in selecting the correct decision-making procedure from the categories available in the normative decision model.
Question Six
When Andrea arrives for an interview, the boss communicates she will be arriving an hour earlier. Everyone gets into a frantic race to put everything in order before she arrives. The rushed activities are not because the employees are excited by their boss early arrival but it is due to fear. The employee fear the boss too much to an extent they can’t share an elevator and even apologizes for being in the elevator at the same time the boss is in the elevator (MoviemomentsAUS’s channel, 2012).
The boss exhibits power as her mode of leadership. Being the owner of the business, she applies both the coercive and legitimate power since she has the power to fire and hire an employee and the employee feels that they are obligated to follow her instructions. The leadership is not ideal since the employee will work just as hard not to get fired (Northouse, 2004). The boss should explore ways to connect to her workforce thus create a team
References
CineGraf (2014). O captain, my captain!
Lipset, S. M. (2001). Political philosophy: Theories, thinkers, concepts. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press.
Lussier, R. N., & Achua, C. F. (2013). Leadership: Theory, application & skill development. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.
MacPherson, J. (2011). Blindside p and p 2
Mikedaquila (2011). Remember the Titans Coach Boone Speech
MoviemomentsAUS’s channel (2012). Devil Wears Prada.
Northouse, P. G. (2004). Leadership: Theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Resolute Productions (2011). Office Space—Working tomorrow.!
Vecchiarelli, M.S. (2013) The princess bride—Battle of the wits
