Where the Wild Things Are

So I believe I was the only one who watched Where The Wild Things Are, a movie I'm convinced was created by all the hipsters at Urban Outfitters.  In class it seemed that the majority of you had never seen it, and by majority of you I mean everyone but Krystal, so if you don't want the movie ruined for you I don't recommend reading much further, everyone dies, just kidding, or am I?  No really just stay away from my transformational leadership section and you should be fine.

Slideshowish

I'm sorry to inform all of you but me and the slideshow gadget have infact broken up.  Due to the fact that I just couldn't figure out how to get my pictures to show up in a slideshow I knew the relationship just couldn't go on.  Lucky for you, you will still have the opportunity to check out my transformational pictures.  What I really wanted to do was find five pictures of a transformer changing from an autobot into a car but that was nearly impossible so here are some beautiful scenic images instead.

Regular Show

My Transformational video comes from the show Regular Show, my clips are in two parts but they are both about a minute long, so no excuse for not watching them. Enjoy : )

Pop's Speech Part 1
Pop's Speech Part 2

Burn Notice

The task this week, write a biography about a biographer, what I’ve chosen to do, inform you as to why this 92 year old man is cooler than you and me.

James MacGregor Burns was born August 3, 1918.  As part of his education he attended Williams College after turning down Princeton University.  Total side note but how much fun would it be to say, “Sorry Princeton but I’m too cool for your school.”  That's probably just my fantasy, so here is some more cool information about Burns. During WWII he joined the Army as a combat historian in the Pacific where he received four battle stars and a Bronze star.  Next he completed his master’s and doctorate in Political Science at Harvard University.  He then went on to write many notable and award winning books, including, "Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox,"(1956),  the Pulitzer Prize winning, “Roosevelt: Soldier of Freedom,” (1970),  "Leadership" (1978), and "The Three Roosevelts: Patrician Leaders Who Transformed America" (2001).

So let’s take a pause for a moment. Just looking at what I’ve mentioned above, I’m already jealous of all his cool accomplishments, and just when you think Burns couldn’t possibly have done anything cooler you find out he did.   So what makes Burns even cooler you ask?  How about the fact that he is not really one to brag, case and point he tried to convince the University of Maryland not to name their leadership academy after him, they did anyway.  To this day anytime Burns has to mention the leadership academy he still keeps his name out of it.

The last thing I want to mention and probably the most relevant thing to this class is that Burns coined the theory of transformational leadership.  I know I should probably talk about the fact that transformational leadership was a way of getting away from the idea of trait based leadership and focusing instead on the interactions of leaders and their followes, but to be honest I totally just love the idea that he coined something.

This concludes Mr. Burns’s biography but if you really want one last reason as to why he is way cooler than me and probably you, because this has got to have happened to someone besides me, here it is.  The entire time I’ve been writing this my headphones have been, unbeknownst to me, tied into my shirt (don’t ask me how) and when I went to get up to get something to drink I was violently attacked by my computer.  I am convinced James MacGregor Burns is too cool to ever have anything like this happen to him.

The Main Event: Contingency Theory vs. Situational Theory

Contender One: Contingency Theory

Contingency Theory divides you up into either a task oriented leader or a relationship oriented leader.  This is determined by looking at the least preferred co worker scale.  A high score means you scored your least preferred co worker in a more positive light thus have a human relations origin, while a low score means you scored your least preferred co worker in a more negative light thus you are more task oriented.

Contender Two: Situational Theory

Situational Theory describes four different behaviors required of leaders: telling, selling, participating, and delegating.  Certain situations will require different behaviors so the above behaviors need to be applied during the appropriate time to be effective.

Round One

When looking at these two theories more closely one of the main weaknesses to me of Contingency Theory is that while you may feel great saying that you are more relationship oriented or more task oriented, because let’s face it we are human and we are all about finding and defining ourselves, the theory doesn’t leave room for you to adapt to situations.  Task oriented people are only good leaders in certain situations and relationship oriented people are only good leaders in certain situations.  So the theory states that if you are not properly suited for the leadership position you are in then the only solution is to remove you from that position.

Round Two

On the other side Situational Theory is a bit more flexible.  There are certain situations where the four different behaviors (Telling, selling, participating, and delegating) are appropriate.  The key to situational theory is not to get stuck in one behavior.  The telling behavior is completely appropriate for a manager and a new employee relationship, but as that new employee starts to learn their job and become more self sufficient it is important that the manager changes as well.  If a manager continues along the telling path and the employee no longer feel that it is necessary conflict could result.

Round Three

So for me personally Contingency Theory doesn’t hold much weight (that wasn’t even an intentional fighting pun and it made me cringe), one of the things I really think a great leader needs is to be able to adapt, that and I think determining the type of leader you are based off of what you think of the least favorite person you ever worked with is really weird.  Situational Theory if done right can be much more effective in my opinion but it takes a leader who is not going to get stuck in one type of behavior to really illustrate this theory effectively. 

The Winner

Situational Theory in a unanimous decision, yes I was the only one voting but this is my blog so I make the rules.   

Pop Pop

I don’t know how many of you watch Community but it is one of my favorite shows ever, and if you are a person who likes laughing than you should probably be watching, NBC Thursdays 8pm.  Aside from that Community’s latest episode was about running for Student President of Greendale Community College so I thought it was the perfect choice to apply some of our leadership theories to.  If you would like to check out the episode I am talking about it is currently up on hulu, Season 2 Episode 17, titled Intro to Political Science.  Below I am going to take a look at some of the characters and what leadership theories I think they best illustrate.

Annie – Annie is a character that I think illustrates Path-goal theory.  She does this by clarifying her goals throughout the race. Annie wants to remove mold, and balance the school budget “by removing administrative redundancies.”  She also tries to remove obstacles out of her way, her obstacle mainly being Jeff, so she shows the school his audition tape from the 90s for the Real World where he sings his version of George Michael’s Faith in order to embarrass him.

Jeff – During the race Jeff is definitely task oriented. The only reason Jeff decides to run for Student President is to prove to Annie that government is stupid.  Jeff uses lying and misleading tactics to get the voters on his side.  Jeff tries to play himself as the everyman, even stating at one point that his favorite color is a, “three way tie between red, white, and blue.”  Anytime that Jeff believes Annie is gaining ground with any of the voters he comes up with ways to make them like him more.

School Voters – I think to find the LMX theory present in the episode it is best to look at the Voter/Candidate relationship.  During the debate is where this theory is best illustrated.  I think that the Voter/Candidate relationship is in Phase 1, people aren’t really sure of any of the candidates but they are willing to follow for the benefits they are going to receive by having a Student President.

The Post Formerly Known as Prince

I feel like before you read on I need to insert a disclaimer, writing about other peoples’ blogs not my thing.  If I were to put it in terms the common man would understand I would rather watch the movie Nights in Rodanthe, 24 hours, every day, for the next year, but I’m not that lucky so here are my thoughts…

I’m going to begin with the least awkward part, who was lucky enough to have a point of view similar enough to mine?  I choose you… Tom, sorry I quote Pokemon when I’m nervous.  Time to refocus, so what exactly did I learn?  Well aside from Tom having it out for the people at PMAI we shared some pretty similar views on this whole leadership thing.  Tom doesn’t seem to be into the idea of trait based leadership either, though he may have found more middle ground with it than me, I believe I called it, “depressing,” while he more poetically stated, “if a person focuses too much on these traits they can miss some aspects of a great leader.”  Tom also picked honesty as one of the traits he admired so I guess that was pretty cool too.

And now it’s time to awkward this post up even more and take a look at what I learned from the person who had a differing point of view, EmilyAnn.  Well for starters I learned that you can in fact learn something from someone you don’t totally agree with.  EmilyAnn believes in the idea of trait based leadership, but she puts a different spin on it and talks about, “Natural Born Leaders,” and “In Times of Need Leaders.”  I thought this point of view was interesting mostly because I had never really thought about “In Times of Need Leaders” before.  It made me think about situations where there have been “In Times of Need Leaders” and while they may have been fairly suited for the current task, were they really suited for other leadership tasks?

Ok time to exhale because for the time being I am done having to write about other peoples’ blogs, it looks like Netflix and my mind have dodged a bullet. To Tom and EmilyAnn thank you for writing awesome blogs but just so you are aware I may not be able to look you in the eyes for the next week, it’s nothing personal.