Elements of Leadership, Essay Example

There is no doubt that leadership is one of the most common traits that our society covets most of all.  People appreciate individuals that are able to stand up and provide guidance and lead people to action in highly motivational ways.  In fact, many examples of leadership are evident within movies and stories.  One of the most recent examples of this form of leadership storytelling is found within the movie Miracle, which tells the story of the 1980 United States Olympic hockey team that shocked the world by defeating the Russian team en route to its first gold medal in decades.

Kurt Russell stars in this movie as the legendary coach of the team Herb Brooks.  His leadership style was very different from many coaches who would yell and scream but ultimately choose the best players with the most talent to play against the world’s best hockey teams in the Olympics.  Instead, Brooks chose to build his team around a group of young, semi-talented players that each played an important role in building a championship aura.  In Miracle the story explains that most of these players came from Boston or Minnesota, which recently had rival universities face off in the college hockey national championships in 1979.  In order to force his players to get along and act as a team, Brooks puts them through some of the most trying experiences of their lives which culminated in a night-long sprinting event that had many of the players questioning their commitment to the team.

It was in this one night that another leader emerged from the group of nobodies on the 1980 Olympic team, and his name was Mike Eruzione.  At one point the entire group of players was completely exhausted, throwing up all over the ice and barely able to lift themselves off the ground to run another spring.  Brooks continued to belittle the players and blow the whistle to have them run again when Eruzione steps up and makes one of the most inspirational comments in sports movies.  He states his name, hometown and explains that his team is not the local college he played for, or some professional team that is looking to sign him.  His team is the United States of America.  This showed tremendous leadership and maturity for a young player, especially when he was ultimately standing up to Brooks to help his fellow teammates.  This was the single most important moment in the movie and in the real life story because the team actually came together for the first time and none of the players were thinking about anything but themselves and their opportunity to play for the United States Olympic hockey team.

This story showcases many different examples of leadership that are important to understand.  First of all, leadership is not based on a particular position of power.  Eruzione never had any powerful responsibility on the team.  Eventually, he would be named the team’s captain, but he was just another player fighting for a spot on the U.S. Olympic hockey team at the moment that he made his comments.  Furthermore, through intimidation and scare-tactics Brooks was able to lead the players into forgetting about their hatred for each other and focusing it on hating him for everything he put the players through.  This helped the players come together as a group and become one of the strongest bonds that still exist to this day.  Of course the movie has Kurt Russell giving an inspirational speech, which is customary in every sports movie, but it was more the leadership he showed to bring the group together that provided for a winning mentality and inspired the players to achieve greatness at the 1980 Olympics.  Leadership is not about great speeches, it is about having the courage to do what is right when it is necessary in order to help provide guidance and support to teammates or co-workers.

Academic professionals and leadership analyses have come to express the statement that great leaders are great storytellers.  Although this was not something I learned from Miracle, it is a common factor that is present within my workplace.  Many of the supervisors that I work for are able to communicate the goals of our company and provide our workers with motivation to achieve these goals through telling great stories.  My current supervisor tells a story of his grandfather that was wounded in World War I and came home to experience the Great Depression with a bullet wound in his leg that never fully healed.  Times were hard and it was very difficult to find work, similar to some of the experiences we are facing today. Still, his grandfather would wake up every morning and head to the docks to be first in line for any positions that were being given out that day.  My supervisor uses this story to explain to us that perseverance and dedication are important traits now, just as they were then.  The most courageous people are ones that show their strength and commitment through their actions and sacrifice.  It is also a little funny that he uses this story to explain to us in another sense that if we do not do our jobs correctly and produce in the manner we need to, we may find ourselves out on the streets looking for work at the “docks” everyday just as his grandfather did.  This storytelling form of leadership provides us with lessons that none of us will ever forget, and I think we are all able to receive a little motivation to do the best job we can because we can appreciate the moral of the story.

One of the best motivational and leadership videos that I ever watched came from YouTube of all places.  This story is very emotional and would be ideal for a new employee orientation that would emphasize leadership among the individuals, perseverance and motivation.  The story is about a young man that is in front of a group of children telling stories, laughing and having a good time.  The picture is zoomed in on his face and the faces of the children he is speaking with at a local school.  Then, the video slows down and poignant music begins playing as it zooms out to show the young man has no arms or legs.  He has a microphone attached to his ear that he uses to speak to a group of children in a school.  He tells them that even though he may look different he does not always feel different, but he also explains that this was not always the case for him.  He was in a car accident and lost his limbs, but survived.  For the longest time he felt like he had no hope and should not go on living, but that he had no arms and legs so it was almost impossible for him to even kill himself.  He mentions that he had no control over his own life, but when he came to accept that and decided to begin telling his story to motivate others to live their lives to the best of their ability and to never take anything for granted, his life began to turn around.

This story is very moving and helps to express different ways that employees can persevere during difficult times.  Of course work can become boring and monotonous, but it is important that people take time out to appreciate what they have and stay motivated to do the best they can in everything they do.  This video will help provide leadership to the employees through a process called empowerment.  Essentially, it sends a message to the employees that they can make changes within their own lives and the lives of others through caring for other people, staying dedicated to doing the best job possible and persevering despite everything bad that could happen in the workplace.  The employees can showcase their own leadership in the workplace and become empowered through the telling of this story to go out and begin using their empowerment to become better people and work hard for the company by being committed to the goals and activities within the company.

I would use the same story from the employee orientation to become a story that would help explain my company’s values.  Our company would value hard work, dedication, commitment, perseverance, honesty, trust and leadership.  By telling this story, each of these values is clearly present through the difficulty that the young man had through coping with the experiences of his new life without limbs.  Trust and honesty are crucial in his life because people could easily take advantage of him due to his unfortunate handicap and inability to defend himself.  In order to live a regular life, he needs to trust the people that are closest to him and know that they are being honest and caring.  These are the same values that must be illustrated by the employees in their daily activities within the company.  Furthermore, just as the young man showcased perseverance and dedication to not giving up and making the best of his situation, so should the employees.  A number of very important examples can be taken from this one story to express the values of the company and how they can be applied by each employee.

Stories would be a crucial part of our workplace environment because of previous experiences I have had working for other companies.  In one of my previous positions, the supervisor called our staff in for a short daily meeting and began the meeting by telling a story.  Each day, he would assign a different employee to tell a story so that they were not always being told by the same person and becoming boring exercises. These stories could be motivational, inspirational, or have a humorous connotation that forced the employees to take a brief moment and enjoy their day at work.  Some people took stories from the bible, while others focused on a story from their personal lives or something they had heard about on TV that was interesting to them.  Either way, this brief 10 minute time slot provided our employees with an opportunity to enjoy the day or take lessons away from the story.  We began to focus on the people we cared about most or the reason for us having to work, and it made our jobs so much easier.  These stories became very enjoyable and were a highly anticipated part of the workplace each day.

Finally, leadership and storytelling can be used hand-in-hand to help motivate, inspire or provide guidance for employees or teammates.  Movies and everyday activities provide us with the opportunity to experience inspirational events that people go through.  We can draw many lessons from these stories that express values that we want to have exist within the workplace.  A leader within a team or company can also use storytelling to prove a point or provide people with guidance and motivation to fulfill their duties and responsibilities.  There are many different forms of leadership, but it is important to understand the power of storytelling and what the stories can do to provide people with a clear message.  This message can enact additional leadership from the employees or it can just describe characteristics and behaviors that we should all aspire to showcase in our daily lives.  Leadership and storytelling are important to providing guidance to people that need to know that every day is a gift and we must make the most of it.