As the internet became more and more advanced, it allows people to access everything very easily. As the pandemic hits, a lot of people have no choice but to stay home. With that, the use of streaming services has increased even more. Nowadays, a lot of movies and documentaries not only have entertainment purposes but also have educational purposes. With the eye-catching content, it is a good way to learn leadership through movies.
The famous novel and movie, To Kill a Mockingbird, demonstrated the story of a local lawyer Atticus Finch who was hired to defend an African American man accused of raping a white woman. As Atticus Finch being the leader in the movie, his children are his followers. Scout, her daughter, used her perspective to show Atticus Finch’s leadership. Atticus Finch’s traits are very vivid. He has empathy and his interaction with his followers are very positive. The movie shows a Trait approach to leadership through Atticus Finch.
The classic and the one and only, The Godfather, is a movie about the Corleone family’s use of power across several generations to control the Mafia business in NYC. In the movie, every character has strong traits in their own leadership while working in the mafia business. The trait approach was strongly applied in the movie. Also, the path-goal theory was applied when Vito Corleone and Michael Corleone assigned goals for the followers. The mafia has a strong connection with each other, the family bond is hard to break. Hence support leadership is also in the movie.
The Queen’s Gambit, a mini-series movie shows that Beth, a gifter chess player’s story. Throughout her life, she has been trying to achieve her goal alone. However, her trait and personality is the key factor of building up her leadership and having people helping her out along the way. Leader-member exchange is also applied with her support to her followers and even stronger support from her followers. The interaction between the characters is a big factor to learn.
Overall, movies can be a very easy way to get access to the base understanding of leadership. However, like the three movies mentioned above, movies usually have a trait approaches more due to the building of a character. Yet, there are also a lot of leadership theories that can be easily learned with movies.
References:
Hamel, R. (2021). Lesson 6: Contingency & Path-Goal Theories
Northouse, P.G. (2019). Leadership: Theory and Practice. 7th Edition. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
Northouse, P. G. Suggested Films | Online Resources . Leadership: Theory and Practice. https://edge.sagepub.com/northouse7e/instructor-resources/suggested-films.
Sarfaraz, N. (2020, May 5). Must See Films to Learn more about Leadership. Cinemagic. https://www.cinemagics.com/post/must-see-films-to-learn-more-about-leadership.
Hi ivc520,
I really enjoyed reading your post and thought it was a very unique way to compare leadership behaviors with popular movies. Although there were some movies that I have not seen, I feel you did a great job describing what kind of leader each character was like without giving away too much about the film. Personally my favorite movie mentioned in your post is, To Kill a Mockingbird, and I thought you did a great job telling the audience how great of a leader he really was. For a man to have that much empathy, motivation and just overall kindness shows what type of man and leader Atticus Finch was. Instead of turning down the job and showing hatred towards a man, he took the job and tries his best to defend someone that not many people like in the small town.
Hello, I was reading through your blog and I love how you referenced different books along with super popular movies to prove your point about leadership. I really liked how you wrapped in the Queen’s Gambit into your blog as you talked about how her trait and personality was a big factor of how she was able to reach the point that she did.