LEARNING THROUGH FILM

Watching a film about leadership definitely allowed me to get a better grasp of what these leadership theories are all about.   I found that it was much easier trying to find the right scenes that matched the different leadership theories after I had a very good and thorough understanding of each and every one of them. The movie I watched, Mona Lisa Smile, mainly dealt with transformational leadership.  It depicts perfect examples of how a leader inspires a follower in order to make a change that will generate something positive in both of their lives. 

The most significant part of leadership theory that I learned from the movie is that many times, during the process in which a leader is trying to motivate change in their followers, they actually encounter sort of this epiphany where they see a change in themselves that they had not seen before.   In other words, many times leaders may be using their leadership style not only with their followers, but also with themselves, without even noticing. This can be seen in Julia Robert’s character and how at the end, she realized how she was the one that needed to go out and see the world and create new adventures in her life. This all happened because that is exactly what she was trying to inspire her students to do instead of marrying and becoming housewives. This also made me think about the fact that being a leader does not mean that you have all the answers. It is a never ending process where through experience, leaders learn on a daily basis different ways to learn and self develop.

This movie also strengthened my positive thoughts about behavioral and situational leadership in the way that it shows how different types of leaders act in order to get what they want or to reach a certain goal. Let’s take Betty for example. She is the stuck up, mean leader that uses her power and manipulation skills to get things done her way. On the other hand, Giselle uses her inner nature to “flow against the current “along with her high confidence to influence her classmates to think differently. Ms. Watson chose to be innovative and creative in order to communicate to her students the importance of opening their eyes to the world and stepping outside of their boundaries.  All these characters used certain behaviors that classify how they act in order to lead, influence, and inspire in certain situations.