Money and Leadership

     The ending scene of Other People's Money is one of the best in the entire film. The two polarizing figureheads, Danny Devito and Gregory Peck, give their final pitches to the stockholders. These pitches gave two opposing views that raised a lot of questions for the voters to consider. In my opinion, Larry the Liquidator, played by Danny Devito, gave the more appealing argument. He seemed like he knew his audience a lot better, which is vitally important when trying to persuade people. He made his entire speech about money, and the voters were all invested in the company for one reason, and that is financial gain. He did an excellent job of appealing to the overall energy and mentality of the voters. 

    Responsibility is an extremely interesting topic when looking at the relationship between bosses and employees. I do not think there is a designated responsibility that an employer can have in a business setting. I really think that it can be different within any company or industry. I think a general rule of thumb for a boss would be to really get to know their employees and then figure out from there what their responsibilities are to those employees. 

    America and greed go together like peanut butter and jelly. Greed can look a lot of different ways in my opinion. Greed is the bad and blown up version of want, and want by itself is not a bad thing. However, when want goes deeper and becomes greed, it becomes a bad thing. I think Lawrence Garfield absolutely crossed the line and was an extremely greedy character. He wanted money so badly that it consumed him and he became greedy. He could not see anything in front of him other than money and sex. This greed is a poison from within and often holds people back from further success. 

working girlS in business

 Conflict in the workplace is something that is inevitable. In a lot of business settings, it could happen on a daily basis. There is basically no avoiding it due to the strong personalities that are present in the microcosm that is a workplace. Despite the inevitability of conflict, there are a lot of different ways to deal with conflict when it arises. I think the main way to deal with conflict is just being open with communication from the start. The longer things go unaddressed, and the longer things fester, the bigger an issue will snowball and get bigger. If conflict is directly met with effective communication between the concerned parties, then that is the best method to deal with conflict. 

Melanie Griffith is an extremely interesting character. She is the main character in the movie Working Girl, starring alongside heavy hitters such as Harrison Ford and Sigourney Weaver. The big conflict in the movie is Catherine Parker, the boss, stealing an idea from Melanie. This is obviously an extremely awkward and uncomfortable situation for Melanie, but I think she handled it great in the moment when it all blew up in the conference room. She did not meet Parker's aggression with reciprocated aggression, and instead just stayed relaxed and calm. Eventually, the whole situation worked itself out in the favor of Melanie, mostly due to the fact that she remained calm under pressure, which is crucial for the diffusion of conflict. 

Women as bosses is something that we are starting to see more of in today's society. This is extremely positive in the grand scheme of development for workplaces. However, women in the workplace are not always satisfied with their female bosses. Often times, as women climb up the business ladder, they feel as though they are forced to step over other women to find success. This is a huge issue in the workplace. There is a major need for women to uplift other women in the workplace in order to promote the overall success of the gender. 

Workplace Behavior

 The lens and scope of this blog post is very interesting because of the movie that we watched this week. Glengarry Glen Ross is a fascinating movie that follows a sales team over the course of a 24 hour period. The leadership that has inspired this blog post is extremely interesting. Alec Baldwin has a short cameo in this movie, in which he enters the sales office and provides a profanity laced monologue about the output of the sales team. This monologue, as well as many other scenes in this film, are profanity driven and hard nosed in the sense that they are very blunt. 

Profanity is something that is a very interesting topic, especially regarding its presence in the workplace. In this movie, four letter curse words are used over a hundred times. This raises the question of if profanity has a place in a business setting. I am of the opinion that it is just another word. Curse words have a certain connotation around them. However, I think that these connotations are extremely subjective. If everyone you are working with is comfortable and seems to not have a problem with it, then I think that curse words should be treated casually. I really think the usage of these curse words really just depends on the vibe of the workplace, so I don't think there is a universal answer to this question. It just depends on the overall vibe and energy of the workplace. 

Competition in the workplace is something that can be extremely productive, and can get the best out of workers in the company. One of the best ways to get the most out of people is to drive them with the idea of striving to be the best. Personally, I am a very competitive person. I am at my best when I am competing with other people and striving to beat them. I don't think this is a universally good thing, but it certainly works for me. I believe one of the best ways to promote healthy competition is to promote incentives. In the movie, Alec Baldwin threatens the employees to promote competition. I do not think this is good at all, however, positive incentives are a really good way to get employees to take the bull by the horns and be a little bit competitive with each other. Sales in general is a really good field for competition to be present.

Accidental Leaders

    Leadership is an extremely challenging thing by itself. It is the type of burden that can define lives and create legacies. People choose to be leaders for a variety of different reasons, however, that is not the topic that I will discuss today. There are certain occasions where we see people thrown into leadership positions without really having much say about it. Gone With The Wind, a movie based in the Civil War time period, has prime examples of people who have been thrust into leadership positions by mere accident. Although these people were not natural leaders, and maybe had not even realized they were leaders, they still made the best of it and found ways to lead in their own ways. This accidental form of leadership is very informal, but also effective in times of crisis when leadership is required. 

    Scarlet O'Hara is the main character of Gone With The Wind. She is a pretentious girl who does not care for much else other than her love life. She is one of the most self centered people to ever grace a big screen at the beginning of the movie. However, she is quickly thrust into a makeshift leadership role that requires her to grow up a little bit. I would not say she is a conventional leader that people want to follow because of any outstanding qualities. However, she stumbles into this leadership role, and people follow her mostly because there is no other choice. This accidental leadership is a huge reason that we see Scarlet mature a lot and become a developed character. The scene that is the most powerful and a prime example of Scarlet's development into an accidental leader is the scene in the rain under the bridge. She is taking care of a dying woman, and a helpless woman, and she is standing strong in the water under the bridge with chaos happening all around her. If you would have told me that the strong, dependable person in this scene was the same person who had a man get her dessert for her at a barbecue, I would simply not have believed you. I think another example of an accidental leader in this movie is Mammy. She had the entire O'Hara house in order and it ran extremely smoothly and impressively. She probably did not intend to be a leader, but she unintentionally filled a void that was present. 

    There are certain situations that we see accidental leaders come to light. One of the prime examples in cinema that we see accidental leaders come to light is war. In war movies, people are forced to become leaders, whether they want to or not. One of my favorite examples of this is Mel Gibson in The Patriot. War is such a dire situation that requires people to be heroes, and cinema does an excellent job of capturing these stories and showing the accidental leadership of people in war. 

The Successful Devil

     Miranda Priestly is the successful editor of the Runway Magazine in the movie The Devil Wears Prada. Priestly's success is largely contributed to her drive and focus on her job. She is so particular and serious about the magazine that there is really only one outcome- success. Her passion and drive are often times seen as cold and abrasive to the people who work at Runway. Her leadership style can be seen in a lot of different ways. If she was a man, there would be no question about her leadership. She would be seen as successful and that is all. However, she is a woman, and there are a different level of expectations for woman in power positions. The demanding aspect of her leadership is looked at as a negative. I think this is completely unfair. In a business setting, I believe the ends justify the means. Miranda is wildly successful, and she is able to have the magazine run in such an efficient way that can only be accredited to her firm leadership style. 

    I think I would describe Miranda's leadership style in one word, and that is detailed. I think she is extremely detail oriented in what she wants and her vision for the magazine. I think this detail driven mindset can absolutely be seen as tyrannical or cruel, but in my opinion, it comes from a good place. She has a vision of what she wants for the magazine, and if an idea is not aligned with that vision, she is quick to shoot it down and get everyone on the same page to execute that vision, down to the smallest detail. I think this leadership style is effective because it emphasizes and empowers followers to do their job to the highest level and check all of the boxes. When employees see the top of the company be extremely detailed they will ensure the same level of detail is present in their work as well, and this is only a recipe for success. 

    The important aspect of leadership is how followers react to the leadership. I think characters in the movie such as Andrea and Nigel were positively affected by Miranda's leadership. They were forced to do their job to the highest level to align themselves with Miranda's standards. I think this is crucial when trying to build a successful business. Miranda's leadership was the driving factor in setting up her employees for success. 

The Downfall of Charles Foster Kane

 Charles Foster Kane is one of the most polarizing figures I have ever seen on the big screen. He is the star of the movie Citizen Kane, and is spectacularly played by Orson Welles. He was created into the man we see through childhood trauma, in my opinion. At the beginning of the movie we see Kane, a carefree child playing in the snow in Colorado, uprooted from his family and taken to live with a strange man out east. This young boy would grow up to become to the leader of the New York Inquirer because "it seems fun." Despite his youthful happiness and energetic livelihood into his entrepreneurship, he eventually was met with an inevitable downfall. There are two things that led to his eventual downfall, and this piece will dive into both of those reasons. 

The first big reason Charles Foster Kane had a ferocious collapse throughout the plot of Citizen Kane was his ego. I think his ego can be summed up perfectly through one scene, and that is the party scene. This part of the movie gave extreme Wolf of Wall Street type of vibes. I think this dinner party scene can only speak to the ego of Charles Kane. He was apart of the choreographed dance with the dancers. I think this extremely lavish scene spoke to the ego of Kane and just how he had almost become too big for his own good. I like to look at it is though he flew too close to the sun and burned his wings, and this scene was his peak. His downward trajectory would follow after this scene.

One of the other big reasons that I think Charles Foster Kane had a severe downward trajectory is how he treated people closest to him. His treatment of Leland was one of the things that stuck out to me the most. He was quick to fire him and mistreat him. His ego had a large part to play in this mistreatment of Leland. One of the other people that he treated extremely bad was his first wife. Not only did he cheat on her with his second wife, but there was one scene in particular where I think his mistreatment of his wife was evident. He was talking with her at their dinner table, and he made a point of trashing the current President of the United States, who happened to be related to his wife. This arrogance and mistreatment of his wife actually ended up possibly costing him his campaign for governor. He was caught by his opponent running around with a "singer", who ended up being his second wife. This mistreatment of his wife came back to haunt him and greatly contributed to his downfall. 

Pilot- Why Movies?

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Cinema is something that is deeply rooted in society, and probably will be until the end of time. The beauty of movies is that they can mean something different to any person you may ask. 

For some people, movies are just pure entertainment. For others, movies can have a little bit more of an intense message that can a great impact on people's feelings and personal thoughts. On the larger scale, movies can also be an escape from the present reality for people. 

Personally, I would say cinema crosses all three categories for me. There are some movies that I will just watch when I am in need of a laugh or a boost. Other movies have an outstanding message that can be impactful. Those types of movies are typically the ones that I watch and think about for a long time after, which speaks to the power of cinema itself. And lastly, I use movies as a way to kind of just forget about what is going on in my real life. The most enthralling movies are the ones where you can watch them, and not even worry about checking your phone. 

A movie that I watch when I am just looking to be entertained is Superbad. It is a comedy starring Jonah Hill and Michael Cera that premiered in 2007. I love this movie because it is timeless, which is

Superbad Movie Poster

another brilliant aspect of cinema in general. The humor that see today in 2024 is a lot more filtered than the humor that takes place in Superbad. It is nice to be able to watch that movie today and be entertained enough to where you can actually feel yourself in another time period. 

One movie that I think has an amazing message is Miracle. Miracle is a true story about the 1980 USA Olympic Hockey Team that upset the powerhouse Soviet Union to win Gold at the Olympics. This is probably one of the greatest underdog stories in sports that is another timeless classic. This movie is incredibly empowering for anyone to watch because it shows the power of what can be accomplished with simple belief, which is a lesson that can be taken into anyone's everyday life. 

United States Winning Gold in 1980 Olympics

My favorite movie of all time is The Departed. This is a drama starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, and Jack Nicholson. This is a movie that keeps me on the edge of my seat every single time I watch it even though I know what happens and could probably quote large portions of the film. The main focus of movies for me is to be drawn in. If a movie can get me invested and focused, then that is the benchmark that can separate a good movie from a great movie. The Departed draws me in like no other movie ever has. It is one of those movies that has so many twists and turns combined with amazing acting that is simply a masterpiece.

Damon and Nicholson in The Departed