Movie Analysis Invictus

Movie Analysis Invictus
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Movie Analysis Invictus
Summary
Inviticus is a film that is acted immediately after the apartheid regime. It revolves around characters Nelson Mandela who had just been released from prison and elected the first black South African president. The movie also revolves around a rugby team that was always losing and had lost its supporters who were white especially since the blacks could not support the team since they believed it did not represent them at all. Mandela mentors the team captain and inspires that him to lead his team to win the world cup against New Zealand (Eastwood, 2009).
Review
Leadership is the activity or individual leading a group or an organization towards a common goal (WebFinance Inc., 2016). Leaders are always expecting to lead followers and step up during the crisis to help their followers to solve problems. Leadership is never taught in class but can, however, be learned through mentorship and coaching. There are several theories which seek to describe major ones being; Great Man theory which expresses leadership as inborn, Trait theories that leaders inherit the leadership qualities from someone, contingency, situational, behavioral, participative, relationship theories among others (Leadership-Central.com, 2010). Leadership can also take different styles depending on the leader or the situation. Leadership can also be classified according to styles such as autocratic, participative, transactional, transformational or laissez-faire leadership (Johnson, 2016).

In order to understand leadership, let’s analyze the movie summarized above:
Consequently, Nelson Mandela was the primary leader in the movie. He had just been released from prison and had been elected the first black South African president. Having been elected the president of a country that was so divided, Nelson had the challenge to step up his leadership and bring the country together and unite the citizens regardless of the race or historical injustices. He mostly uses democratic leadership where in order to be able to win the support of the people. For instance, his assistant Brenda is quoted warning when he demands to go and talk to the sports committee. She tells him he should consult before doing so otherwise “it gives the impression of autocratic leadership.” (Eastwood, 2009)Nelson Mandela was elected the president at a time when his country was so divided along racial lines. He had to work hard to ensure the cultural differences and the historical injustices were addressed and he felt it was his duty to unite the South Africans.
When he became, the Nelson Mandela made some sacrifices that would have threatened his support from the people. Contrary to the expectations of many, both blacks and white, Mandela accommodates all South Africans regardless of the color of their skin, and on his first day in office, he asks the whites to stay and work with him. He tells them, “no one should feel threatened because of the color of their skin or who they are working for previous. I want to stay you are allowed but do you work well” (Eastwood, 2009).
In his efforts to unite the nation, Mandela was intelligent enough to spot rugby as a game that would help him in his source. Though Springbok team was initially seen as a white’s team and blacks never supported it, Mandela inspires to mentor their captain Francois Pienaar to lead the team to win. In his mind, he knew that a winning team would mean that it would bring all South Africans together to watch the matches and to celebrate as a nation and not one race only. He persuades South Africans and his comrades to support the team as it represented the nation to the world. In his effort to unite the nation, Mandela played the role from a distance and used the rugby team as the tool which will bring people together. He influences the rugby captain to conduct rugby clinics around the country and hence they would be able to win the support of the people.
To achieve his objective, Mandela had to work close with the rugby team captain and even try to understand his leadership. For instance, when he asks the captain leads his team, he agrees with the captain when he says “I have always thought to lead by example” (Eastwood, 2009). Furthermore, he also uses his charisma by the fact that he knows in order to achieve his goal through the team he had to eliminate the mentality of apartheid from the team members themselves. He always visits the team every time before the match starts and with wishes them good luck. By the end of the movie, “the team had emerged strong and won the finals of the world cup.” This was a big moment because he had finally managed to bring all South Africans together to watch the match and celebrate the win as a nation and not as blacks or whites.
“In order to succeed in leading our nation, we must all exceed our expectations” this is a quote by Nelson Mandela from the film. He proves this; by the way, he managed to convert the rugby team from perennial losers to winners of a world cup, even though most supporters had thought it was impossible. He also exceeds his expectations when he seeks to unite the nation even if everyone was against his ideas.
In conclusion, leadership is needed in every group or organization. Leaders are expected to possess certain qualities that make them unique and patient. Several leadership styles can be used depending on the setting but depends on the leader’s charisma, intelligence and experience to know which method to use.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
References
Eastwood Clint. (2009). Invictus = L’invincibile [Video file]. In Invictus.
Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1057500/
Johnson, R. (2016). 5 Different Types of Leadership Styles. Retrieved November 16, 2016, from smallbusiness.chron.com Website: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/5-different-types-leadership-styles-17584.html
Leadership-Central.com. (2010). Leadership Theories. Retrieved November 16, 2016, from Leadership-Central.com Website: http://www.leadership-central.com/leadership-theories.html#axzz4QC9iCzDr
WebFinance Inc. (2016, November 13). Leadership. Retrieved November 16, 2016, from BusinessDictionary Website: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/leadership.html