Sunday, February 7, 2016

Blue Mountain State - relational leadership

Blue Mountain State is a show that focuses on a couple different football players at a huge party university. To set the scene, the main character, Alex Moran, just became the starting quarterback and captain of the team. After the team lost their first match of the season the team loses and then they throw the worst party that they have ever had where even the the teammates left. After the teammates lost all moral and camaraderie. As captain, Alex is the leader and it is a dictatorship, the team will do what he wants.

The team needed somebody to take over and lead them to a victory on and off the field. To show leadership it got the team to be inclusive by bringing everyone together and riled up for the best party that they could ever have. To bring the team together he dragged every player into a meeting so they could talk about their problems and how to fix it. This quality of a leader is essential to be great. This brings us to empowerment, where he has then given each of the teammates roles to play to make the party great. In the real world, leaders need to make the followers feel a sense of need in the team. Although he mainly wanted to have the best party of his life, ethically he is doing the right thing for his team and peers to have a good time and come together to win. What Alex is doing is giving the team a sense of purpose, to come together, to party, to win. He is creating this purpose so the moral gets boosted so the team becomes a team, so they fight for each other, fight to win, and fight to have a good time. Alex took the team through a process to show his leadership skills and become somebody the team can respect and look up to. He created the path and had them follow. This show, while ridiculous, displays all aspects of leadership at multiple levels, the dean of the school, the coach, the captain, and Alex even not as a captain.



Scene can be found on netflix: Blue Mountain State Season 3 Episode 3  13:40 to 16:09

1 comment:

  1. I think this is a good example of relational leadership. I have seen this show before and I agree that Alex Moran is a great leader. I think that this type of person can be someone who is a leader on a team today. This person accurately has all the skills and strengths a leader should have. I liked how you exactly described what Alex did in each scene to make his teammates feel welcomed. This leader, in my opinion, displays all the relational leadership traits. This show is very interesting, so you would not think that a leader would be portrayed in it. I do believe that this messed up team does need a leader to keep them in line. Empowering and inclusive are good traits that show his true leadership skills on and off the field.

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