Movie Leadership Analysis A Focus on Stand and Deliver

Running head: LEADERSHIP 1
Movie Leadership Analysis: A Focus on Stand and Deliver
Name
Institution
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Movie Leadership Analysis: A Focus on Stand and Deliver
Leadership can be broadly conceived as a process of creating followership among groups
of people to realize certain set goals or accomplish a task (British Council, 2017). In the context
of organizations, the leaders may be the managers, while the followers are comprised of
members. In the convention, the managers will command good leadership if they lead by
example and possess certain values that make the employees trust their followership. The
managers should also be able to know the employees, recognize their needs. In essence,
leadership could be broadly seen as characterized by the relationship between the stewards and
the followers in relation to what makes the team realize desirable results. This paper explores the
leadership and follower relationship in the film, Stand and Deliver.
The Primary Leader in the Movie
The primary leader in the movie is Jaime Escalante, a mathematics teacher at Garfield
High School. He teaches in a school dominated by Hispanic students who have learning
difficulties and performing poorly in class. Because of his exemplary leadership skills, Jaime
Escalante is able to transform the school culture and motivate his students to excel in academics
(Menéndez & Musca, 1988).
The Elements of Leadership
The film evidences different elements of leadership that are exhibited by Jaime Escalante.
In particular, the leadership potential is mediated by three factors largely influenced by the
intervening social environment: knowledge, integrity, and commitment. Leaders need to be
endowed with knowledge about task environment to be able to function effectively. In this case,
Knowledge refers to having awareness, understanding, or familiarity with an issue, and
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achievable through experience, learning, perceiving, or education. Knowledge may be practical
or theoretical, and encompasses complex cognitive processes such as reasoning, communicating
and perceiving.
Secondly, leadership also need to exhibit integrity potential. In this case, integrity is seen
as a trait that reflects honesty and desirable moral standards. Integrity is a personal choice that an
individual makes to follow moral and ethical requirements, which is synonymous with
truthfulness. In this regard, a leader will be said to have acted with integrity if he exhibits
internal consistencies to cling to ethical ideals as the guiding virtues, and which enables them to
shun from engaging in the practices that amount to the conflict of interests. Finally, commitment
is the engagement or involvement in tasks or obligations. Leaders are required to be dedicated to
group tasks to enable others to have confidence in them. They need to be fully aware of the
missions and visions of the group and be particularly involved in meeting them by leading
others. While there are various definitions of leadership, the most concurred view is that leading
is the process of creating followership. Jaime Escalante expedites perfection in these areas to
succeed in his leadership.
To create followership, exemplary leadership is judged by three elements: behaviors, the
consequence of actions and growth. In this case, the aspect of behaviors entails taking
responsibility for the group issues, and empowering people to create followership. Leaders are
needed to lead by example through practicing what they preach. As far as the impacts of actions
are concerned, leaders will be judged regarding how they can impart a positive influence on the
organization or teams. Leaders also align people inside and outside the organization with the set
mission. They also communicate the vision, mission, and direction frequently and consistently to
the members. Also, they establish informal networks depending on timing and needs. Such
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alignment brings about the unity that encourages cohesion and unity. According to Mellor and
Barnes, leaders also create and sustain an organizational culture. They deal in coordination and
division of work, for instance, organizing of work and recruiting staffs, delegating responsibility
and authority and implementing the vision. They motivate and inspire employees to work. This
type of motivation includes communicating a vision that aligns with people’s values, involving
individuals in decision making, supporting efforts, and recognizing employees’ successes. They
energize employees to overcome barriers to change. Leaders participate in controlling processes
and solve problems to make work efficiently and efficiently. They ensure that everything is
working smoothly based on time, budget, and set quality. They also monitor results, while
guiding people based on influence and the idea of persuasion.
Lastly, the aspect of growth is informed by the notion that the work environment is
always changing and leaders need to be involved in growth and development process, which is
considered as a way of increasing the capacity to keep abreast the emerging issues. Jaime
Escalante is able to study the potential of his class and embrace continuous change to enable his
class to succeed in academics.
The Aspects of Management
There are a number of management aspects that revealed in the movie. These aspects
include directing, controlling, monitoring and implementing the vision. The attributes of
management that Jaime Escalante exhibits include executing the vision of the school by
embracing a strategic vision and breaking it down to roadmap that is followed by the learners,
directing the day-to-day learning process and reviewing resources, managing process by creating
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the learning rules and procedures and monitoring and evaluating performance based on
institutional policies.
Leadership Traits
Jaime Escalante will certainly feature on the list of one of the most remembered leaders,
and there is evidence about his strong leadership qualities. During her time as a teacher, he
introduced policies that changed the way the learning operates, setting a framework academic
success. He exhibits various leadership traits.
As a transformative leader, Jaime Escalante was always listening and considerate to the
views of his followers. This trait reveals he works with the subordinates. In the running of
operations, Jaime Escalante appears to have utilized this trait and created a cult of following. As
a result, not only are the followers were the beneficiaries, but the institution has been enabled to
perform to the expectation. Indeed, this trait is significant to human resource motivation.
Jaime Escalante is also outgoing in the way he deals with the challenges, serving as an
example for followers to emulate. Indeed, Jaime Escalante does not easily give up because of the
setbacks that come in his ways such as poor school culture and resistance. In fact, he sees
positivity in challenges, which eventually makes him a successful leader. Jaime Escalante can be
seen to have considered failing is a stepping-stone to the next level. He does not believe in
complaining. In essence, he believes that failure presents an opportunity to learn and this means
picking important lessons to improve next time.
He uses his intellectual simulation to complement his transformation leadership trait.
Jaime Escalante has developed a different way of thinking, where his focus is on the motivation
of his learners. He believes that the perfect starting point is when the followers feel motivated.
His different reasoning makes him outstanding intellectually. Ideally, the learners are rational
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agents who must be engaged and motivated. Jaime Escalante is considerate to the learners’
needs. In essence, he is also a selfless leader who goes beyond obligatory duties of teaching to
discretional roles such as motivating and leading his class towards enrolling in advanced
mathematics.
Jaime Escalante is a motivating and inspiring leader who exhibits various personality
traits. He is dedicated to his job. Furthermore, he was frank when it came putting things right. In
case learners go wrong, he walks to them and corrects immediately. He encourages openness in
communication and sharing of learning ideas. He stays connected to the learners and he is open
to exchanging ideas that would transform learning.
Thus, it is indisputable that Jaime Escalante is a strong transformational leader. Indeed,
he exhibits all the qualities of the transformational leader, motivating, leading by example,
striving to empower the followers and being understanding and selfless. The evidence is revealed
in his famous quotes, speeches, and initiatives he undertakes while serving as the mathematics
teacher. Consequently, the environment he creates is attractive and makes learners to like
mathematics.
Ethics and Values
Moral, value-based and ethical approaches are common theories of leadership. Value-
based leadership strives to align the personal and organizational values into the missions and
practices. Moral based leadership, on the contrast, pursues the standards of morality, which it
integrates into the mainstream organization decision-making. Ethical leadership is concerned
about doing what is right. All these theories are crucial in regulating the organization practices.
However, they are potentially problematic because they are subject to dilemmas. In many cases,
the organizational goals may clash with morals, values, and ethical standards. Moreover, these
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standards tend to be varied across societies, implying the inherent difficulties of developing
regulatory frameworks that are supported by consensus. Interestingly, Jaime Escalante is able to
balance between these two competing demands to assure desirable results.
Ethics are crucial to institutional success in many ways. In one way, upholding business
ethics is a way through which firms regulate themselves and avoid problems with the law.
Ideally, being ethical includes observing the law, which would attract penalties when otherwise
violated. The impacts of penalties are far-reaching and can subvert the efforts of the firm in
realizing its goals, including revoking licenses and paying certain amounts. Upholding ethics is
also important because it is a way of winning clients. It follows that clients are conscious and
rational shareholders who are interested in supporting businesses whose practices are in line with
their values. Companies that fail to observe these values risk losing their reputation and
customers. Indeed, the environment in which contemporary businesses are operating is
demanding and characterized by heightened competition, which gives clients the enormous
bargaining power. Lastly, upholding ethics is important because it communicates the values of
the organization and sets the culture that employees should follow and avoid scandals.
Leadership Behaviors
There are various behaviors that build trust in a team. The notable behaviors of team
members and leaders that will encourage trust include leading by example, communicating
effectively, exercising emotion intelligence such empathy, sympathy, being a good listener and
understanding, commitment and dedication to team roles, and showing respect and fairness
Trust is the believing that a team member will be able to help fulfill the set vision. Trust is
important to team performance. It is a determinant of productivity. Teams build trust through a
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number of initiatives such as building skills, cultivating knowledge and encouraging
responsibility among team members. The working skill such as communication, understanding
and collaboration is important to help build trust in teams, yet it is important for the leaders to be
endowed with the knowledge to fulfill the needs of leadership such as trust. Discharging
assigned roles effectively is one way of asserting capability, thereby earning the trust.
Jaime Escalante provides an opportunity to highlight various elements of leadership.
Firstly, leadership is role behavior and not management position; it requires one to go beyond the
management to exercising interpersonal and relationship skills. Secondly, instead of telling
members what to do, a leader shows them by example. Thirdly, leadership must be committed to
positive change other than just inspiring. Fourthly, leadership is about the unity of members;
leaders must strive to engage, valorize and accommodate diverse views of members. It should be
responsible to admit mistakes to enable the team to accept failures and commit itself to change.
Fifthly, leadership is role behavior and not management position; it requires one to go beyond
the management to exercising interpersonal and relationship skills. Leadership must commit to
positive change other than just inspiring, yet it should also be about the unity of members;
leaders must strive to engage, valorize and accommodate diverse views of members. More
importantly, leadership should not be toxic. It should acknowledge the diversity needs. It should
be able to recognize the emotional and psychological needs and devise strategies for engaging
them to be productive. It must also be driven by ethics. Leaders need to work closely with the
members and identify the needs for change (Moore, 2017).
Power & influence
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Jaime Escalante limits his power to get close to his learners, thereby creating an
opportunity understand their concerns and to influence them through motivation. Good leaders
do not need to control, but direct followers. Member autonomy and self-expression are one of the
key determinants of motivation. To provide this autonomy, leaders should develop a habit
directing, as opposed to commanding followers. The power relationship enables the students to
be free to the teacher and build trusting relationships that make them succeed in academics. The
leadership approach is also participative learning that enables every learner to be actively
involved in the learning process.
Contingency Theories
The social exchange theory ted motivation tends to play a crucial role in building a
reciprocal relationship between the leader and the follower. The leader builds the relationship by
embracing the humanist orientated theory of learning, which considers that learning is a personal
endeavor focused on fulfilling one’s potential. It regards the learner as a person who has both
cognitive and affective needs. Therefore, to realize the desired outcomes, the proponents assert
that learning should lay emphasis on the dignity, freedom and potential of the humans (Ashley,
2017). Moreover, learning needs to be student-centered and personalized, with learners receiving
facilitation from the teachers. The learning itself should be centered on the goal of nurturing self-
actualized people who co-exist in supportive and collaborative environment. In other words,
humanism learning approach recognizes the value of human freedom, potential and dignity. It is
hinged on the assumption that people act based on values and intentions. Therefore, it is opposed
to behaviorist theory that hinges on operation conditioning, and the cognitive views that
knowledge construction is critical for successful learning processes. Humanist considers that it is
necessary to study the individual learners entirely as they grow for that informs how the learning
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can be tailored to individual needs (Get Revising, 2016). However, this learning theory is overly
optimistic, assuming that learners are intrinsically motivated to choose positive learning paths.
This free will and motivation lack in some individuals. It also tends to fail when it overly
emphasizes on subjective experiences, which makes uniform learning difficult. More
importantly, the effectiveness of the approach cannot be scientifically ascertained because it does
not use rigorous and objective predictions that testable.
Followership
The followers in the film are Hispanic students who are struggling with academics. They
work closely with their leader, Jaime Escalante to identify the need for change. Consequently,
they work together to implement the change, which is essentially focused on improved academic
performance. Communication proves essential in facilitating the sharing of information between
team members and their leader. With effective communications, the team is able to work
together and achieve the change.
Teams
The team in the film comprises of the classroom and the teacher. The teacher is the team
leader. The relationship between the leader and team members leads to the inference that leaders
are not the only determinants of success, but team members. Therefore, success is best assured
by cooperation of the members playing their roles team, while the leader has to be a good team
player. Moreover, a good leader needs to be responsive to the needs of the followers and be
caring, listening, motivational, and understanding to the followers. The learners and the teacher
make up a team because they have a shared mission and objectives, and they share information
and engage in a relationship that reinforces the efforts of each other.
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Charisma & Transformational behaviors
Jaime Escalante is transformational. In this case, transformational leadership can be
defined as the approach that recognizes the social and psychological needs of the followers, and
works to address them as a means of empowering the followers to be productive (Rawung,
Wuryaningrat & Elvinita, 2015). This leadership approach aligns with the humanistic paradigm
that considers followers are special resources that needs to be treated through motivation such as
through inspiration and reward. This principle is necessary because the current teams have
various demands, which if unaddressed, could lead to lead to lack of employee morale, stress,
depression, burnout, turnover, and reduced productivity. The current workforce faces various
workplace challenges such as work overload, job uncertainties and reduced autonomy, among
others, and must be supported by listening and understanding and transformational leadership.
Jaime Escalante seemingly acknowledges these issues and embraces charismatic and
transformational leadership behaviors.
Organization Culture
Organization culture can be conceived as beliefs, behaviors, norms attitudes and notions
that define an organization. The school Jaime Escalante teaches is marred by the lack of
supportive organizational culture, an aspect that he strives to transform through leadership. The
school culture is used to poor performance that has led to beliefs that Hispanic students cannot
perform well in mathematics. The teachers and students are less motivated to work hard because
of this belief.
Organization culture affects productivity in many ways. In one way, organization culture
could contribute to overall success of the organization by creating an environment that is
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conducive to the realization of organization goals. In the other way, organizational culture can
harm or impede desirable productivity, and this often happens when the organizational cultural
values are out of line and do not reflect organizational goals. An organization culture often
functions as a unifying factor, in which all members identify with and strive to conform, yielding
desirable outcomes. Subsequently, organizational culture functions to complement leadership
because both are oriented at ensuring the realization of organization goals. When this unifying
factor ceases to exist, leadership is also weakened, rendering the organization to lose track or
engage in conflicts. There are a number of scenarios that are likely to result when organization
culture is weak, thereby costing organization productivity. Some of the notable sensitive areas
that are likely to be influenced by organization culture include teamwork, co-existence, and
ability to fulfill organization goals.
Without a supportive culture, conflicts may arise within organizations because of the
differences in beliefs and ways of thinking among members. At management levels, these may
be ideological or cultural conflicts, hindering the process of reaching agreements in
organizations. Conflicts may arise due to action incompatibility among members’ values.
Conflicts are also associated with circumstances in which group members hold different
perceptions regarding the achievement of organizational goals, a scenario that would be easily
addressed by developing a unifying organization culture.
Organization culture is also a constraint of organization leadership from the perspective
of cohesion. Cohesion refers to the act of working together to realize a common or mutual
benefit. Cohesion in multicultural settings is hampered when managerial groups and stakeholders
fail to provide forums for teamwork awareness. All the parties of concern feel this practice.
Furthermore, group members in an organization do not necessarily fail to cooperate because of
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irrationality or ignorance, but also because of lack of supportive organization culture. Therefore,
when organization leadership recognizes the lack of cooperation as an antecedent of worsened
organization culture, the teamwork and other challenges would be easily addressed.
What has been Learned about Leadership and Team Work
Three points that can be learned about leadership from the movie are:
Leadership is a process of creating followership to achieve a common goal and requires
follower’s trust.
Leadership is role behavior and not management position; it requires one to go beyond
the management to exercising interpersonal and relationship skills.
Leadership is about the unity of members; leaders must strive to engage, valorize and
accommodate diverse views of members.
There are various points that have been learned from engaging in this teamwork, notably:
Team/Group communication is essentially team/group member’s interactions. Team
communication ideally applies to groups containing three or more people.
Usually, communication is often useful when it is a simple dialogue between two people.
However, as the number of individual increases, communication becomes difficult
because dialogue cannot effectively serve the demands of all the members.
Group settings are characterized by various forms of challenges that need to be overcome
by employing quality communication strategies, which are translated to effective
decision-making processes, idea sharing, conflict resolution, harmony, cohesion, and
openness.
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References
Ashley, A. (2017). Learning Theories and Law: Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism.
Retrieved from https://ripslawlibrarian.wordpress.com/2017/03/14/learning-theories-and-
law-behaviorism-cognitivism-constructivism/
British Council. (2017). Global Definitions of Leadership and Theories of Leadership
Development: Literature Review. Retrieved from
https://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/final_leadership_composite_report_wit
h_references_26-06-17.pdf
Get Revising (2016) Humanistic Approach. Retrieved from
https://getrevising.co.uk/grids/humanistic-approach-2
Menéndez, R. and Musca, T. (1988). Stand and Deliver. Tom Musca
Moore, R. (2017). Managing Remote Teams: Management Theories. Retrieved from
http://pmworldjournal.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/pmwj57-Apr2017-Moore-
remote-teams-management-theories-featured-paper.pdf
Rawung, F., Wuryaningrat, N. & Elvinita, L. (2015). The Influence of Transformational And
Transactional Leadership On Knowledge Sharing: An Empirical Study On Small And
Medium Businesses In Indonesia. Asian Academy of Management Journal, 20(1):123
145

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