Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership:
Will Schuester, "Mr Shoe" from Glee, is an exemplary leader. He cares about the needs of his students and he helps them to achieve their individual dreams while pursuing the shared goals of the entire glee club. At one particular episode (ep22 season 2), what he does showcases the five practices of exemplary leadership. He inspired a shared vision among the glee club that they are all going to win at the nationals, but the glee club members get carried away in the big city and are not being productive in writing songs. Meanwhile, they learn that Mr Shoe may be leaving them for Broadway. Mr Shoe voices his personal values by sticking with teaching instead of performing on Broadway to keep the team together. He challenges the process by changing the way they prepare for nationals. Most importantly, he fosters a collaborative environment to enable the glee club members to bring out the best in themselves.
I can't find the video clip where Mr Shoe brings everyone together when they are fighting against each other right before going on stage, but here is the promo for that episode:
Authentic Leadership:
As my favorite Broadway show and Disney movie of all times, The Lion King comes to my mind immediately when I am thinking about Authentic Leadership. I really like the show because we can see how Simba grows into a true leader. Simba is always ambitious and eager to be king, we can tell from the song "I just can't wait to be king". But he doesn't understand what it means to be a king at that time, thinking being brave and adventurous is enough. Well, he is wrong and his father's death transforms him into an authentic leader. Grownup and mature, he now understands his purpose and motivation better -- he wants to return home and restore the devastated Pride Lands. Inspired by his father, he has strong personal values and he leads with his heart. He does not lead for power or status like Scar, he leads for his faith. The following clip shows one of my favorite moments from the show where Rafiki guides Simba to overcome his fear and have faith in himself as leader of the Pride Lands:
Reciprocal or Relational Leadership:
The Avengers is quite an interesting movie in terms of leadership and teamwork. Each of them is a hero in their own right, but when they come together for a shared cause, they seem to act on their own and just focus on what they do the best as an individual, which leads to damage and death. Captain America steps up at the right time to bring all these people who are good at acting on their own to form a strong team. The process from individual to a team embodies the five key component of the relational leadership model: purposefulness, inclusiveness, empowerment, ethical practices and a process orientation. They come together for a good cause, an ethical cause. This shared vision binds them as a team and empower each individual to do something they could not achieve on their own. They all learn to put their personal conflicts behind and combat as an inclusive team. They look out for each other and view the battle as a team effort instead of an individual war.
Below is a glimpse into this movie:
Jiaxi!
ReplyDeleteThese were three great interpretations. I especially enjoyed your insight into The Lion King. Considering I also explored that movie in my post (and ironically also linked it to Authentic Leadership), I could see a lot of similarities between our views. However, you brought up something that I didn't see before--that Scar only has leadership aspirations, while Simba leads from his heart. Question: would that be more of a servant-leadership model, rather than authentic leadership? I want to hear more about this!