Thanos as an Effective Leader

Lately, I have been watching the Marvel Avenger’s movies and find myself focusing on Thanos’s leadership. Thanos makes himself infamous but, he is an effective leader. I just want to provide a spoiler alert for those who have not watched Infinity War. Thanos is ultimately the “bad” guy in several of the Marvel Avenger movies. In Infinity War, Thanos is seeking all the infinity stones to eliminate half of the universe. He believes that the planets are overpopulated and in order to restore order that all things need to be perfectly balanced. His logic on how to obtain this is to collect the infinity stones that represent power, time, reality, space, soul, and mind to eliminate half the universe.

Thanos leads an army that destroys whoever is in their way to find information on or to collect an infinity stone. Prior to his need to find the infinity stones Thanos uses his army to destroy certain populations on different planets. He calls his army the children of Thanos and they are a collection of different alien species from across the universe. Thanos has a main goal and that is to create balance in the universe. To meet his goal, he must collect all six infinity stones no matter what it costs him. He states over and over that he believes he can obtain his goal by eliminating half of the universe.

Thanos uses his power and army to collect the infinity stones and as he collected more and more stones his powers continued to grow until he collected them all. Thanos did anything he needed to in order to collect the stones, he even sacrifices his own daughter for the soul stone. The soul stone was protected and the only way to collect it was to sacrifice someone you love. The fact that Thanos could and would sacrifice his own daughter shows that he believed in his cause at all costs. He believed that his own goals were worth more than anything else.

When viewing Thanos as a leader we can see how he uses the skills approach to leadership and utilizes the three skills model. Thanos has the technical skills, “including knowledge and ability to use the tools and processes of the organization” (PSU WC, 2016, L4 p.3). Thanos understands that in order to achieve his goal of balancing the universe he must collect all the infinity stones. He knows where these stones are and tasks his followers to go collect them. Thanos is knowledgeable about the stones he knows what each one is for and how to use each stone separately. For instance, once he gets the reality stone, he can create a fake world where is daughter tries to kill him. He wants to see if she truly cares, once she starts crying, he uses the power of the stone to put the world back in order. The human skill is, “the ability to work with people, and as such is referred to as “people skills” in everyday language” (PSU WC, 2016, L4, p.3). Thanos demonstrates this skill by realizing that a small number of individuals cannot accomplish his task, he needs to develop an entire army to complete his goal and thus creates his “children of Thanos”. The conceptual skill is the one that Thanos has the most skill set in, which is “skills about ideas” (PSU WC, 2016, L4, p.3). Thanos believes that the only way to restore balance in the universe is to eliminate half the population. Thanos and his army was doing this planet by planet, but he thought bigger and learned about the infinity stones. The infinity stones allow him to complete his goal in a snap of the fingers compared to planet by planet.

When reviewing the competencies of the skill approach it is important to highlight that Thanos demonstrates problem-solving skills and knowledge extremely well. Interestingly, though I believe Thanos understands social judgement skills but does not use them effectively in his leadership. Problem-solving skills “are a leader’s creative ability to solve new and unusual, ill-defined organizational problems” (Northouse, 2019, p.48). Thanos demonstrates this by finding a solution to being able to control and harness the power of the infinity stones. To anyone person the infinity stones are powerful and can harnessing their power can often lead to death. He had a glove built to withstand and harness the power allowing him to use either one or multiple stones at once. Northouse defines knowledge as, “a leader’s capacity to define complex organizational problems and to attempt to solve them” (Northouse, 2016, p.51). This again has been demonstrated by Thanos developing a solution to the over population of the universe by eliminating have the population. Thanos himself had lived on a planet that was destroyed due to overpopulation. As one of the only survivors he saw what could happen to other planets and provided a solution. What Thanos is lacking is his competency in social judgment. Social judgement is defined as “the capacity to understand people and social systems” (Northouse, 2016, p.49). In the film it is not clear if Thanos has any other solutions to helping to prevent over population. Due to this unclarity I must assume that Thanos is not looking at other solutions his only solution is to eliminate, because this is his solution he forgets or does not care to look at how it affects others. Thanos crosses into the dark side of leadership slightly here when he only cares about his solution and either does not understand or does not care about what other want. In this instance, Thanos demonstrates narcissism and impulsivity. At this point in the film it is clear Thanos is overly self-confident and extremely ambitious and his leadership style often ignores the feelings of others to establish his goals. (PSU WC, 2016 L2 p.5).

By the end of the film, Thanos has clearly demonstrated how effective leadership can accomplish tasks. However, if the goal of the leader is one that is negative, such as eliminating have the population of the universe, it might not be overly looked at as a positive achievement. Ultimately, Thanos succeeds at collecting all the infinity stones and eliminates half the population of the universe. While he might not have had the most ideal goals Thanos was effective in his leadership. His ability to create a plan, share knowledge of the stones, have his follower’s complete tasks assigned, and then ultimately meet his goal shows that his leadership was effective. It is important to note that Thanos did not use all the skills approach competencies. It makes you wonder if Thanos would have used the social judgement skills just a little how would that have effective his leadership.

References:

Feige, K. (Producer), & Russo, A. (Director) (2018). Avenger’s Infinity War [Motion picture]. United States. Marvel Studios.

Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice. 7th Edition. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.

Pennsylvania State University World Campus (2016). PSYCH 485 Lesson 2: Trait Approach: The Dark Side of Personality. Retrieved on February 23, 2020 from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/2040131/modules/items/28001669

Pennsylvania State University World Campus (2016). PSYCH 485 Lesson 4: Skills Approach: Skills Approach Models-Three Skills Model. Retrieved on February 23, 2020 from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/2040131/modules/items/28001698