Issues of Power, Politics, and Leadership in Devil Wears Prada - Essay Example

Culture contributed to the issues of power, politics, and leadership- Devil Wears Prada In organizations, employees like the five different fingers in human’s hand will be different from one another as most of them will have different characteristics, different attitudes, different education, etc, etc. Uniting these different humans and making them work under a common organizational culture will always be a difficult proposition because their differences will mostly lead to singular or different working culture. In that scenario, the success of the organization will be minimal or even null. Thus, if a common, feasible and effective corporate working culture is ‘operationalised’ through out the organization, the organization can achieve maximum unity, productivity and success. Organizational culture is the set of key values, beliefs and attitudes shared by organizational members. Organizational culture is often created by company founders. (Chuck 2009). Thus, the one person who can formulate, actualize and operationalize an effective organizational culture will have to be an effective leader. The leader through many traits like power will implement or impose that culture. With the culture having been implemented, it will give rise to different responses from the employees bordering on both positive side as well as negative side. Negative side in the sense, there will be some negative office politics because of the imposition of the culture. This paper by focusing, “The Devil Wears Prada” will demonstrate how the organizational culture based issues of leadership, power and politics were portrayed in the film. Leadership As leaders are the men/women in lead, they usually have a major impact on how the group initially defines and sets into an organization. Typically, the leaders have strong assumptions about the nature of the world, the role that organizations play in that world, the characteristics that make up human nature and relationships, how truth is arrived at, and how to manage time and space. They will, therefore, be quite comfortable in imposing those views and personal cultures, on their partners and employees as the organization copes with challenges and targets. This initial stage imposition of founder’s assumptions, as a form of good culture is one of the good leadership traits, because as the workers’ mind will be fresh in their new organizational setup, they will be motivated to adopt that new culture. Motivation is the set of forces that initiates, directs and makes people persist in their efforts over time to accomplish a goal. (Williams 2009). This new culture will consist of many rules, regulations, policies, rituals, etc and the leader will impose those things for the betterment of the organization. However, in some cases, those rules and rituals will border on the negative side, with the leader creating it mainly for personal issues like superiority complex, suppressing the employees, etc and not for organization’s success. In those situations, the challenge will come in the form of workers who will have difficulty in adjusting to this new culture. That is, some workers will enter the organization with some preconceived notions and if the culture is opposite to their notions, they will struggle to adapt losing motivation. Importantly, if the culture created by the leader is extreme or challenging, then will also the newly recruited employees will struggle. This exactly happens with Andrea "Andy" Sachs, protagonist in the film The Devil Wears Prada, as she finds it difficult to adapt to the extreme or challenging organizational culture created by the leader or editor-in-chief Miranda Priestly. In the film, Miranda’s character as part of organizational or Runway’s culture creates certain negative rules or rituals mainly for personal issues like subordination of all the employees and to show them she is the boss. For example, Miranda orders her assistants including Andy to perform a task ritual of placing a glass of water and magazines on her desk every morning before she arrives. Although, this ritual cannot be taken that negatively because placing water and magazines for the boss does not seem to be that suppressive. However, Miranda’s act of imbibing and forcing her assistants to do this duty shows that she wants to dominate the employees and they have to do these types of works, which is unrelated to their nature of job, as part of organizational culture. Along with this, her act of throwing her coat and bag on Andy’s desk as she enters her office and expecting Andy to place it appropriately is also sign of dominative leader and her culture. Thus, Miranda was setting up a challenge to Andy and every employee to conform to her standards and organizational culture and if they fail to do so, they could be fired! (James 2006). This type of forcing the employees to adapt the organizational culture, which could be opposite to their preconceived notions, will be a challenge to the employees as well as leader. This will de-motivate the employees as they will struggle to adapt to this ‘extreme’ organizational culture. Two key leader behaviours are initiating structure which improves subordinate performance, and consideration, which improves subordinate satisfaction. (Williams 2009). So, when it comes to creation of organizational culture and its initial imposition, Miranda negatively imposed her personal streaks like domination as part of the culture de-motivating Andy. When the organization attains some success or great success, the leader’s assumptions or his/hers work culture will become shared, and the embedding of those assumptions, can then be thought of more as a process of socializing new members to the group. This embedding of culture cannot be done in a single day, it is a slow process with each value and rule taking their own time to be absorbed. However, the process can be quickened when there is success and importantly when the employee has no other option than adapting to culture. In those scenarios, the employees will be optimally motivated to adapt to that culture. The role of the leader as well as the management team is to hold on to the culture and make it work, so the workers have no other choice but to follow it. “He had to seduce the employees into a situation in which they had no choice but to rethink their identity.” (Schein 2004, p. 306). In the film, this scenario replicates with Miranda and particularly Nigel, Art Director, embedding Andy the Runways’ organizational culture of being highly fashionable. In a scene, Nigel makes it perfectly clear that to be a suitable employee at Runway, she has to lose weight and wear fashionable clothes. With Runway and its employees representing clear physical symbols of designer brands and trendy appearances as part of their organizational culture, Andy has to be motivated to slim down, become pretty and wear stylish clothes. This embedding of the organizational culture had a positive effect and importantly motivated Andy, with her becoming quite fashionable in the immediate course of the movie. Thus, if the leader or even the management team performs the embedding of culture in a constructive manner, then the employee will adapt the culture and its rituals. Another effective leadership trait that leader should show as part of actualizing an effective organizational culture is, getting involved in all the processes that will take place in the organization. That apart from creating an organizational culture by restating the old culture or creating a new one, the leader should become an integral part of all the processes that takes place in the organization importantly involving the employees productively. Managers can increase workers goal commitment by encouraging worker participation in goal setting. (Williams 2009). His / hers ‘touch’ both mental wise and physical wise should be found in all aspects of an organization. He/she should not shy away from his/her responsibility of providing correct guidance and setting personal example because apart from having a negative connotation on the subordinates, it would also be a sure recipe for the failure of the organization. The role of the leader is to motivate his/her subordinates through his/her action and through proper guidance. However in The Devil Wears Prada, Miranda without fully integrating herself into the organizational culture and without giving proper guidance wanted her employees including Andy to complete various tasks. In many scenes, Miranda gave a long list of tasks to complete to her employees, without any clear instructions and guidance, and even did not allow any questions from the employees. Without these necessary prerequisites, she expected the employees to know the details of each task and complete it successfully, thus remaining aloof and not integrating with the organizational culture. This set bad example for the employees and thus affected their motivation levels severely. She sent Andy on multiple errands including getting unreleased copies of Harry Potter for her twin daughters, without clear instructions, and an impossibly short time-frame under threat of being fired if she did not deliver. (James 2006). So, only if the leader involves himself/herself and importantly guides the workers towards the target, the culture will get strengthened as more success ‘pours’ in, however that was not the case with Miranda in the film Politics When a new employee enters an organization, along with the leaders, it is the senior employees (who will be leaders in their own right) who should take the initiative and guide the employees with apt communication traits, avoiding any office politics, as part of the optimal organizational culture. If the employee because of the lack of skill and knowledge about the organizational process struggle during the work, it is up to the senior employees to guide them with encouraging and suggestive communication. However in the film, the senior employees lacked this vital communicative trait instead playing petty office politics. Informal communication channel consist of grapevine, which arises of curiosity and is carried out through gossip or cluster chains. (Williams 2009). As soon as, Andy enters the office, employee after employee at Runway express their own negative, scary and intimidating tales about Miranda and her actions, none of which consisted and resulted in any motivation. With the senior employees de-motivating Andy with negative communication, she gets frightened about Miranda, thus making it difficult for her to adapt the organizational culture, getting caught in the office politics. Leader should actualize an organizational culture and related rituals or rules, which enables more interaction between the leader and the employees. Minimization in the use of status symbols on the part of leader is a key thing, which can make the employees shed inhibitions and make them motivated to interact with the leaders for constructive purposes. Physical status symbols of office politics like private offices, special dining rooms for executives, and personal parking spaces should be curbed down. “…a firm understands its environment and fashions a response to that environment at the macro level” (Boyacigiller, Goodman, Phillips, 2003, p. 321). This environment will make the workers stay, at office, an enjoyable experience at the same time motivating experience. However, in the film, Miranda developed many status symbols as part of office politics to establish her role as the ‘Master’, who can influence and intimidate her ‘Slave’ employees. For example, she made the elevator as the status symbol in the Runaway’s physical environment and thus prevented any employees from riding with her in the elevator. Minimization of the status symbols is one of the important needs because it will give even the lower staff, a motivation filled feeling that all are treated equal, irrespective of the salary, experience, etc. However, in the above discussed scenario, the workers mental thought process will be filled with negative attitude about their leader and her organizational culture. Power A leader of the present day needs to be a perfectionist in rendering his service, thereby exhibiting optimum power. It therefore calls for sincerity, devotion and strict discipline towards his organization. Strict discipline in the sense, leader should exhibit anger as a tool of mass and positive change. Some or many people will get angry even at a slightest pretext, however powerful leaders will get angry, only when the situation necessitates it. An powerful leader must learn to control his/her emotions which makes a major impact upon the employees. Leaders often get carried away and lose control of their emotions, engaging in conflicts and disagreements. This not only be a setback for the leader, but can strongly impact productivity and organizational culture. So, leaders have to subdue their anger, when it will result in further conflicts, and use only when it can have a positive impact on the workers. However, in the film, Miranda does not imbibe this key trait of using power in her functioning, showing her anger and abusing her employees including Andy in front of other employees and even customers. “No one likes to be ‘dressed-down’, especially in public. Miranda routinely demeaned Andy in front of the other employees by calling her insulting names, mocking her style of dress, her level of intelligence, and her ability to handle the job.” (James 2006). This form of negative leadership will surely lower the motivational levels and could even lead to the exit of the employees from the organization. Although, Andy did not take that decision of exiting, she felt de-motivated, only getting her motivation with support given by Nigel. Normally, leaders and the organizations will be judged by the success they achieve. Judged in the sense, they will be appreciated, feted, discouraged, hated etc, etc… by the success or the lack of success (failure). In today’s world, success of an organization is mostly correlated with profits, markets share, etc. Although this perspective is not at all wrong, the bone of contention is how the organization and the leader achieve success. Whether, they achieve it through correct way or through unethical means and achieve power or lack power. The primary focus of any leader should be to give a clean management based on preset ethics as part of the organizational culture, exhibiting optimal power. “More often than not, discussions about ethics in organizations reflect only the "individualistic approach" to moral responsibility. According to this approach, every person including leader in an organization is morally responsible for his or her own behavior.” (Brown, 1989). Importantly as part of ethics, the leader should not do harm or even backstab his/her employees for their own personal gains, misusing their powers. Followers of ethical charismatic leaders work harder, are more committed and satisfied, are better performers and are more likely to trust their leaders. (Williams 2009). However, opposite to this happened in the film, The Devil Wears Prada with Miranda as part of unethical organizational culture and misuse of power backstabs Nigel for her personal stability. That is, in the climax of the movie, when Miranda becomes aware of a threat to remove her from the editor-in-chief position of Runway, she checkmates that move through various options, including the removal of Nigel. Nigel was a loyal assistant to Miranda and performed all his duties perfectly, fulfilling every instructions of Miranda, and so Miranda was ethically bound to protect him and develop him professionally. However, to save her job, she unethically misuses the paper and gives the go-ahead for the removal of Nigel. “An unlucky pawn caught in the crossfire is Nigel, Miranda’s loyal design assistant. His ambitions get decimated, prompting Andy to virtuously claim that she could never backstab someone like that.” (James 2006). So, Miranda by not incorporating ethics as part of her functioning as well as her organizational culture forced Nigel out of the office, thereby fully de-motivating Andy and forcing her to quit the job as well. That is, Miranda points out to Andy that she herself acted unethically by grabbing the chance to go to Paris from another character, Emily. “Oh, but you already have. You did it to Emily.” (McKenna et al, 2006). Although, Andy’s reason for quitting is self-realization on her part, Miranda’s misuse of power hastened the self-realization process. Conclusion and Three behaviours, which Andrea could have enacted The first behaviour Andrea could have enacted is she should have been more proactive instead of being stagnant and ‘saturative’ when it comes to fitting into the appropriate and the needed organizational culture of being fashionable. In the film, Andy struggles to adapt to the organizational culture of being highly fashionable and thinks it is a tough organizational culture. That is, in the initial stages of film, Andy appears in her unkempt hair, shapeless argyle blend polyester sweaters, frumpy plaid skirts, and clumpy clogs, thus appearing to be quite odd in a very fashion conscious work setting and culture created by Miranda (James 2006). However, the basic point is, Miranda incorporated fashion consciousness as part of her organizational culture and also as part of achievement-oriented leadership style because her magazine operates in the fashion industry, where physical looks particularly what a person wear matters more than their mental abilities. So, in this case, Miranda’s insistence of being highly fashionable exhibits the positive trait of achievement-oriented leadership. Here, Andy was at fault for not adapting to the set and positive organizational culture. So, Andy should not have stagnated and saturated, and should have been proactive and thus continued to develop further. This could the first behaviour which Andrea could have incorporated into her function. As every employee including Andy knows about dominative behaviour of Miranda, it would have been better, if Andy had adjusted to the situation, without stagnating and saturating. That is, she should have understood Miranda’s nature more earlier and should have been proactive in her actions. The second behaviour, Andy could have enacted is, she could have united more with the fellow employees thereby forming a team of employees. Unison of workers into teams with Andy taking the initiative would have made the employees into strong team and would have got more leverage to control Miranda’s dominative organizational culture. As all the employees including Andy because of office politics abhorred the fellow employees and acted independently without any strong team, it became easier for Miranda to look at this weakness and pick the weakest ones. The other behaviour which Andy could have enacted to deal with Miranda is that she could have continued with her job at Runaway instead of getting caught in role conflicts and resigning from it. That is, instead of the climax in the film, it would have been constructive, positive and better, if Andy without any role conflicts continued with the job, even modifying the negative behaviour of Miranda. As the film has to end, it is not possible, however from business and leadership perspective if the Andy continued with the job with clear definition about her role, she could have taken more constructive steps to bring out a more humane side of Miranda. Importantly with rise in the hierarchy, she could have done many positive changes in the corporate culture of Runaway. References Boyacigiller. NA., Goodman. RA. and Phillips. ME. (2003). Crossing Cultures: Insights from Master Teachers. London: Routledge. 2003 Brown, M. (1989). Ethics in Organizations. Issues in Ethics. 2 (1). James, F. (2006). Office-Politics lessons from "The Devil Wears Prada". Retrieved December 6 2009 from http://www.officepolitics.com/ethics/ethics_prada.php McKenna, AB (Writer), Frankel, D (Director) and Finerman, W (Producer). (2006). The Devil Wears Prada. 20th Century Fox. Schein, EH. (2004). Organizational Culture and Leadership. 3rd Ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Williams, C. (2000). MGMT 2009-2010 Edition. Student Edition. Mason, OH: South- Western Cengage Learning Read More