Leadership styles of the two primary characters: Mr. Walt Disney & Ms. P.L. Travers. (2-4 pages)
1. Was Walt Disney (played by actor Tom Hanks) a servant leader? Why or why not? Give at least 2 specific examples to support your position.
2. How would you describe Mrs. Travers and her leadership style? Give 2 specific examples.
Part 2: Leadership styles of the Supporting Characters (1-2 pages)
1. Pick one (1) of the following supporting characters to profile: a. Ralph (the driver) b. Robert and Richard Sherman (the musician brothers) c. Don DeGradi (the scriptwriter) d. Dolly (the writers’ & musicians’ secretary) e. Tommy (Walt’s secretary)
2. Answer the following questions about them: a. What 2 servant leadership characteristics did you observe in this person? i. Please explain why you think that. Give an example that demonstrates this leadership characteristic. b. How did they overcome a challenge they faced by using their servant leadership behavior?
Part 3: Forgiveness & Servant Leadership (1-2 pages)
1. What did you learn about forgiveness from this movie? Give two examples.
2. Why is forgiveness an important quality in a servant leader?
A leader’s characteristic characteristics when directing, motivating, guiding, and managing groups of people are referred to as their leadership style. Political movements and social transformation can be sparked by great leaders. They can also inspire others to create, invent, and perform. When you start thinking about some of the people you believe to be outstanding leaders, you’ll notice that their leadership styles are often vastly different. Fortunately, scholars have produced many ideas and frameworks that help us better recognize and comprehend these various leadership styles. A group of academics led by psychologist Kurt Lewin set out in 1939 to uncover various leadership styles. While more unique forms of leadership have been uncovered through ongoing research,
ignificant constraints, particularly a short time frame and a large group size, for this situation Chelladurai recommends an autocratic leadership style would be most favourable (Chelladurai and Madella, 2006). The leaders attempted an autocratic leadership style, setting individual tasks for the group, however due to the poor leader member relations and lack of positional power the leadership structure quickly became a democracy. The product was an extremely unproductive workforce initially because of the time spent discussing how was best to approach the task. Because of how the leaders were perceived by the group there was little mutual trust, respect or confidence that the leaders were making the correct decisions, and as a result any management style they tried to implement would have been unsuccessful (Pettinger, 2007). Ultimately, if the leaders had analysed their position and the group they would have realised this and chosen a more democratic approach initially the group would have gained trust for the leaders, making future policy implementation easier.
Teamwork Teamwork plays an essential role within both Fiedler’s Contingency Theory and Chelladurai’s Multi-dimensional model particularly regarding leader-member relations, if the group are familiar and trusting of the leader policy implementation becomes much simpler. Similarly to leadership, understanding and adapting to the situation is key to a leader being able to implement policies that ensure a group work as a team. Teamwork is a product of good leadership, and is again the responsibility of the leader to ensure the group are working successfully together. Highly functioning teams are essential within organisations to increase productivity and member satisfaction, by utilising the talents of all group members effectively within the constraints of the task, personal relationships and the group goals (Pettinger, 2007). Figure 2: Tuckman’s Model of Group Development (Agile Scrum Guide, 2019) Tuckman in his Model of Group Development provides easily identifiable stages that a groups performance can be measured against, making it useful for monitoring performance, Figure 2 shows Tuckman’s model. Ranking group performance against this scale can provide leaders with a clear understanding of how the group are functioning, allowing them to implement policies to change this if performance is unsatisfactory (Pettinger, 2007). Within organisations, the theory can be loosely applied to creating teams by grouping familiar individuals with the aim that they will reach the norming and performing stage of the model quicker. For short and simple tasks this is an extremely effective way of organising groups, d