It’s nice to learn something new and be entertained at the same time. This is what I experienced in our leadership movie presentations. I especially enjoyed our wide range of movie genres and the fact that I had not seen any of the movies presented other than my own group movie. This is helpful because now I have a running list of movies on my ‘must watch’ list.
Another surprise that was not planned was the range of movie selections, which covered different movie genres. Think about it. We had sci-fi with Star Wars, comedy with School of Rock, action & adventure with Braveheart, drama with The King’s Speech and an inspirational true story with Radio. The diversity was refreshing.
More importantly, these presentations made me think about leadership in new ways. For example, presenting the leadership styles of Star Wars characters made me realize how many styles and characteristics there are. And we just touched the surface. I also saw myself in some of the characters. I lean toward a no-nonsense directive/participative leadership approach, as well as having authoritarian leadership traits. I’m definitely no Darth Vader or C-3PO, but then again these two characters are examples of authoritarian leadership gone bad.
The Braveheart presentation identified inspiring, ruthless, detached and unwilling leaders. I don’t know if those were definitions of a specific leadership theory, but it worked. The titles alone were compelling, specifically the detached leader. This one interested me because the detached leader is cowardly and seeks to compromise for selfish purposes. I’ve known some in my life who fit this role, but never identified it in these terms until now.
The King’s Speech presented a before, during and after development of leadership in one of the characters. This was insightful because, really, we all go through a process when it comes to the development of leadership traits and styles.
In the Radio presentation they uncovered leadership qualities, not just for leaders, but traits everyone should aspire to obtain. Qualities as simple as respect, trust, and integrity were displayed in the movie through one of the main characters and the presenters did a good job of conveying these traits in the clips they showed.
And lastly, the School of Rock presentation was enjoyable, because although the main character, Dewey Finn was unorthodox in his methods, the presenters were able to draw out leadership qualities that I wouldn’t have identified just by watching the movie.
I even learned a new word, magnanimity: giving credit, where credit is due.
Well-done fellows and attaches.
gardenia
Nice work summarizing Gardenia. 🙂 This would be a great article to look back on at the end of the semester and see how many of these qualities we utilize a semester!