The Way of Flexibility: A Model of Leadership Essay -- Leader Leading

The Way of Flexibility: A Model of Leadership ?Make sure that any model you do have is compatible with traditional wisdom: Admire the wise of all religions.?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  -John Heider, ?The Tao of Leadership?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Much work has gone into studying, researching, and developing models of leadership. Many models have been put forth, examined, applied, and either used or discarded. Yet, for all this work, there is still not one 'perfect' model or method of leading. Every group and situation is different, and a good leader must be flexible. The best model of leadership is one that incorporates different models into one paradigm that understands that the only constant is change. Therefore, my model of leadership will be based primarily upon flexibility.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Leadership, then, is like gymnastics. It takes a certain degree of physical or mental flexibility to be effective at either. Someone can not simply declare ?I am a flexible leader? any easier than you or I could do a leg split. It must be worked up to, and one must recognize the different skills that need to be worked upon in order to accomplish anything.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  I propose that a leader must first understand the basic styles of leadership and how to apply them. Then he/she can know what style is the most appropriate given the task and group composition. Second, he/she must be able to observe his/her group in order to decide when the aforementioned styles are to be applied, and when problems begin threatening the group or its task. Then, that leader must be able to effectively communicate and influence his/her followers in order to fix problems, provide feedback, and inspire a group to be more than the sum of its parts. That is what effective leadership is about.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  ?Whatever is flexible and flowing will tend to grow. Whatever is rigid and blocked will atrophy and die.? -John Heider, ?The Tao of Leadership?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Much of what is covered in chapter 2 of ?Leadership: A Communication Perspective? has been introduced to me before in a wide variety of classes. The styles of leadership, as well as Theory X and Theory Y, are so basic that no model of leadership is complete without being based or at least touching upon these valuable concepts, so I will begin building my model of leadership here.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  A flexible leader realizes the advantages and disadvantages inherent in each of the three styl... ...nd a few other experiences like this have led me to believe in the old adage that you attract more flies with honey than with vinegar. ?The group is not a final examination for a college course. The wise leader knows that the reward for doing the work arises naturally out of the work.? -John Heider, ?The Tao of Leadership?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  It is my hope that I have developed a competent model of leadership arising out of a doctrine of flexibility. I hope that I can apply this model in my own practices of leadership, to help me build the confidence I need to grow out of my leadership apprehension. I feel that an understanding of the group process, and of the styles of leadership, working together, can provide one with a very powerful method of effective, flexible leadership that can be applied to multiple groups and situations. First, by learning the styles of leadership, he makes harmony between himself and the group. When understands how the group acts and reacts, he can make harmony between the members of the group. And when this leader understands how to influence and conduct his followers, they can both begin to play beautiful music that no one would have been able to play alone.

Luhrmann version of Act 1 Scene 5 brings it to life Essay

Spielberg’s latest epic, Saving Private Ryan, has shocked audiences around the world with his brutally realistic, down-to-earth World War II invasion of Omaha beach. The film opens with the landing boats full of petrified, white-faced, conscripted soldiers, who struggle to cope with the pure terror imposed upon them from the enormity of the task they face. No sooner do you see a close up of their trembling faces and each person’s emotions and worries, the doors opened and the first wave of men were torn to shreds by German machine gun fire. Many men drowned as they were dragged under by their heavy equipment, and those who made it to the shore found themselves seriously outnumbered and out gunned. Specially-designed, frantic freehand camera-work creates the impression you are in the middle of the carnage, so Spielberg puts the audience on the beach with the Allies. Eventually the soldiers complete the takeover of the beach but as the scene draws to a close, the former hand-held camera is now far more panoramic, scanning the beach from a height, but regardless of the thousands of bodies strewn across it, you do not see one face showing war de-humanising all the real people involved in it, who have families back home, but also turning those real people into just numbers and cannon fodder. The scene ends with a close-up of a dead soldier’s pack which contains the words Pvt S. Ryan and the scene cuts. Throughout the entire scene there was a tremendous amount of clever sounds and moving music. For instance, in the panoramic opening scene the music is rather dark and solemn, with a lot of low strings and brass, especially horns. This sets the tone for the scene to unfold. In the first scene there is no music to emphasise actually being there, however there are numerous non-diegetic sounds added such as the underwater bullets piercing the struggling soldiers, the way when Captain Miller gets confused and deaf that the sound is blurred and returns to normal when he comes round but there is also diegetic sound when the explosions are going off as the film crew used hundreds of set explosions in the scene, the lapping of the waves and the monologue were all diegetic sounds. The next scene is a wonderfully made piece that is truly emotional and is a silent one. There is a woman in a crowded office with light shining through, a complete contrast to the dark, de-saturated war scene a moment before. The lady sees three telegrams from the same family and takes it to the senior staff. It is reassuring to see how these men-in-power have some humanity left, taking the case higher and higher until it found the commander-in-chief played by the talented Bryan Cranston who decides that the remaining sibling should be pulled out and sent back to the grieving mother. The point where the mother received the news was fantastically portrayed by Spielberg. It is set in the countryside with a traditional American home surrounded by golden fields yet in the corner of the sky it is dark grey and symbolises the bad news on its way. The car crawls up the small, winding, country lane viewed panoramically from in front of and behind the house. There was one shot that was astoundingly emotional, where Spielberg captured a close-up of the mother’s reaction while showing the car and effectively the news creeping closer, through using the reflection of the window. As she rushes to the door she is cleverly silhouetted out showing that it could be anyone receiving the news and that vast amounts of parents go through this. Also as part of the mise en scene, when she opens the door, she is blacked out and the car pulls up along the house then the officials climb out, the woman falls to her knees. However, throughout this whole dark shot, to the right is a coffee table with light streaming on to it, there is a photo of the four boys in their army uniform showing that they all went but also expanding the plot as you know that there were only three telegrams. All over the table there are flags and patriotic items, this tries to show that the people are behind the war, and that it is the ordinary people who have to stand up to the tyrant. Finally, Spielberg covers many aspects of war in his brilliant production and uses vast amounts of extremely intelligent shots and clever, emotional to portray the emotions and effects that the de-humanising war had on normal people such as Miller, the small town English teacher at home and on the front. Show preview only The above preview is unformatted text This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE Miscellaneous section.

Video Games The Decade Of Decadence - 1116 Words

The 1980s were also known as the decade of decadence. Technology that had been introduced in the 1980s was not any different. Although most of the major technology began in the 1970s, the 1980s improved on the technology and made it more affordable and available for mass consumer consumption. The 1980s was truly the beginning of the personal electronic device revolution, making everything from computers to music and video games more available for personal use. Video games were around long before the 1980s. Programmers had been making video games for arcades as far back as the early 1960s (Kent 65). The late 1970s, however, brought video games into the home with gaming consoles. Nonetheless, these consoles remained quiet until a small†¦show more content†¦The system went on to sell out at almost all locations. The success of the NES System has been attributed to its impressive graphics and the speed and game control that the Nintendo developers had created. By 1991 more tha n 33 millions homes had an NES system (Kent 73). Nintendo lead the way in the home gaming console industry paving the way for such companies as Sony and Microsoft, which dominate the video game industry today. However, video games were not the only technology that made the leap to personal use. Computer technology was well in the works before the 1980s, yet, it was in the 1980s that the leap to home computing was made and thus launched the careers of two of the most famous men in the computing industry, Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, and Steve Jobs, of the Apple Corporation. However, it was IBM that won the race to producing the first personal computer. IBM introduced the first personal computer PC in August of 1991 (History of the PC). â€Å"The first PC was good but not spectacular (History of the PC). However, IBM used many third party developers and companies, which helped, make the IBM the preferred PC. The first PC ran off of Microsoft Dos operating system. This made the IBM easier to add features to, but also made it easier for other companies to come up with their own versions of the PC. Microsoft was not exclusive to IBM allowing room for competitors. Competition came from all different kinds of computer