Movie Assessment

Major Payne’s leadership style is essentially autocratic, as described in Lewin’s leadership styles. Payne ignores all objections to his methods and does whatever he wants. An example of this in the movie is that he shaves the cadets’ heads and begins to train them despite their protests. He ignores them so much that they even begin to hate him for it. The counselor, Ms. Walburn, constantly tries to reason with him, however he ignores her at first as well. Unknown to everyone to everyone else though, was the fact that while Payne did not relent from his autocratic style, he did pay attention to everyone. This fact is shown by how he knew the background of Tiger when the counselor was talking to him. However, Payne failed to demonstrate participative leadership or situational leadership. He failed to show participative leadership because he refused to allow anyone else get involved in the leadership decisions- he just ordered them to do whatever he thought was necessary. However this lack of participative leadership also has an unexpected side affect. It gives the cadets a common enemy and forces them to work together, improving their teamwork. This shows that his lack of participative leadership is part of his own leadership style. He also failed to demonstrate situational leadership. Even though he was teaching students, he continued treat everyone as though he was still in the army. He refused to adapt to the situation. This, however, makes the cadets stronger, therefore allowing them to win the trophy. However Major Payne’s leadership style did change slightly throughout the movie. He remained autocratic throughout the movie, but he became more of a benevolent authoritative leader as described in Likert’s leadership styles. This is most likely because he grew to care more about the cadets. His leadership style was harsh but effective. He pushed the cadets as far as he could, but he motivated them, like Bass’ transformational leadership describes, and therefore leads them to win the trophy. Another leader in this movie is Cadet Alex Stone. At the beginning Stone shows more of a laissez-Faire leadership style, as described in Lewin’s leadership styles. He is the ringleader of the gang because he is charismatic, but he doesn’t really care and eh doesn’t really lead the team. However Payne puts him in charge and forces him to step up. Stone shows more of a participative leadership style. He is more open minded than Payne and he listens to the team and is close to them.