Honesty Declaration and Leadership in the Spartacus - Movie Review Example

Honesty declaration Leadership in Spartacus (1960) Paper number Assignment option Leadership basically refers to the art of mobilizing others to work together towards an aspiration, a challenge that fulfils the needs of the people and the leader. Leadership comprise of a direction of action through which an individual lays his influence on others to achieve a common objective or goal. Leaders continue their work by apply leadership characteristics such beliefs and value, personality and ethics and finally information and skills. Leadership helps people attain their goals instead of merely bossing around. The ideal leader aims to have a respectable and admirable character and to contribute selfless service for others. Several classic movies have been created to center on the ideologies and characteristics of a well-known hero of all time. Spartacus (1960) is one such movie where Spartacus has been a signage of the struggle of the lower class against the autocracy of the upper class. The movie directed by Stanley Kubrick and based on the novel of Howard Fast shows an instance of a heroic leader who led a struggle against the capitalist imperialism by inspiring his fellow companions who were also slaves to the Roman emperor. Elley (1984) comments, ‘The story of Spartacus (enacted by Kirk Douglas) is in fact set in the Republic, but in the theme, ambition and outlook it belongs very much to the Imperial collection’ (Elley, 1984, p. 109). The journey of Spartacus, Roman slave and gladiator begins with his escape along with almost fifty other slaves. Gradually they became so strong that they challenged the Roman Emperor himself. However, in the final battle Spartacus was assassinated and the roman force dominated the whole rebellion but such was the force of the rebellion that it created huge effect over the foundation of the empire for more than 2 years. Spartacus’ quest for his as well as for the freedom slaves has often been correlated with Marxist connotation as observes by Elley (1984) ‘Its moral and sociological lessons are obvious, and in the present century Spartacus has been canonised by Marxist ideology’ (Elley, 1984, p. 109). The practice of the fights of the Gladiators is a barbaric ritual, which takes place for the “entertainment” of the Royalty. The sexual adventures of the characters of the Royal lineage are in direct contrast with the novelty of the lower class slaves. The splendor of the Roman Empire has been emphasized by the plight of the slaves. The slaves were used for the building of Rome and they were killed for the entertainment of the rulers. Owing to the influence of the figure of Spartacus it draws such a great deal of interest from the Marxist philosophers, as if Spartacus and his companions are actually representing the working class of the society and their struggle against Roman Empire signifies battle of the proletariats against capitalist imperialism. Spartacus as a trained warrior now becomes a leader as he leads the men to southern Italy such that they might cross the sea and go back to their residence. The slave revolt initiated by him creates widespread changes in the political and social structure of Rome and leads to the power difference between Gracchus (republican) and Crassus (the militarist). Both the senators try to make use of the war to their advantage. Meanwhile Spartacus and his followers strive for freedom. The task of the leader is only completed by its followers; therefore a superior leader should always work by concentrating on the expectation of the followers from him and what impression he has on them. In this case, Spartacus had something very much in common with the followers. He was actually one among them. They were gladiators trained to fight till death in their own camps even if that meant killing their enemies. Meanwhile he falls in love with Varina, a slave women presented to him at the camp but then bought away by Crassus. This is what initiates the rage in Spartacus who was already in love with the woman. To be a successful in leadership one should remember that being a leader is like being an architect whose function is to analyze and design a path and a structure for the followers. In this case initially Spartacus does not have a plan and attacks out of impulse but when he finds enough men following him voluntarily, he makes a plan to return to Italy together with them. According to Ludwig (2010) leaders need to create a broadly based ambition and handle the goal with honesty. He or she should use these objectives to motivate and mobilize others. They should also facilitate others to work for these goals, create a suitable solution and direct others to arrive at a proposed change and finally the leaders have to ensure that the change fulfils the needs of the people (Ludwig, 2010, p. 34). For Spartacus this has been an easy task since his followers were already tormented but did not have the courage to turn the tables. When the hero took this initiative, the other slaves were automatically inspired to follow suit. As mentioned above and observed by Ludwig (2010) leadership comes with the quality of the leader and one of the qualities is the behavioral pattern and personality. They are two types of personality traits, which are bright side and a dark side. Let us start by describing the bright side of leadership. In this type of trait, the personality of a leader is very cautious about his behavior in and with the public. He wins the trust in a charismatic, strategic and out-spoken way while other leaders behave in a very tactful and humble manner. The follower or the people who seeks advice and guidance usually have a very high value and respect towards the leader and their behavior pattern. (Ludwig, 2010, pp. 34-45) As such, this type of behavior pattern and personality proves to be successful trait towards the leader. On the other hand, if leader posses a dark side of personality his behavior pattern becomes irritating, not productive and usually lacks the ability to lead and create proper plans and guidance towards the targeted objective. This type of behavior usually comes into the picture when a leader is not maintaining his or her self-image in the public or an organization also when times are stressful or even when dealing with task completion, multitasking and dealing with tight schedule or in crisis. However, as times have changed so has leadership and with the complexity that we see nowadays it usually gives the opportunity or rise to the dark side traits. According to Khoo and Burch (2008) if a leader shows his dark traits often then it usually divides the group and breaks the team. There are few leaders that have learnt to control their dark traits while there are others who have not experienced the stress level for their dark traits to come out (Khoo and Burch, 2008, pp. 86-88). The movie Spartacus shows that the personality of Spartacus played a strong role in empowering the followers and the dark traits are absent in him altogether. He shows great organizational skills along with brilliant plans even with limited resources apart form sheer courage and honesty. He knows that the war began shall perhaps never end and he is bleeding inside when he sees so many of his own men getting killed in the rebellion–‘But no matter how many times we beat them, they always seem to have another army to send against us. And another. Varinia, it’s as if we’ve started something that has no ending’ (Spartacus, 1960). According to Kruglanski, Pierro, and Higgins (2007) the organizational context, leadership has distinguished functions depending upon one’s designation and also the size of the firm. In most of the modern organization participative style (participation of the team members are encouraged in decision making process) of leadership is followed rather than directive style (the followers are simply told or instructed what needed to be done in order to reach the common objective) (Kruglanski, Pierro, and Higgins, 2007, pp. 137-39). According to the Path─Goal theory explained by Vecchio, Justin, and Pearce (2008) a leader’s task is to encourage optimal performance from the team members by providing them incentives and rewards, clarifying the steps to reach the goal and getting rid of the hindrances on our path. As described before the personality of the subordinates and the features of the ambience are the situation factors, which influence the theory (Vecchio, Justin, and Pearce, 2008, pp. 71-75). For Spartacus, the goal was firm and strongly realized by all. Their ultimate goal is freedom and the path is defined by the urge to fight against the royal class or imperialist section of the society. His group is motivated by a spirit to fight for freedom even if it means their death because they would prefer to dies than live in chains. Spartacus also uses his intelligence in the war apart from strength especially when he plans to trade the ships for the wealth of the army and carefully manages to expand his group as he moves from place to place. He motivates his followers with the following words and proves himself the capable hero at the same time: ‘And maybe theres no peace in this world, for us or for anyone else, I dont know. But I do know that, as long as we live, we must remain true to ourselves’ (Spartacus, 1960). He has follows his own example when he faces death instead of grabbing the first chance to escape. While Spartacus transfers his thoughts to the other slaves and they begin to hail Spartacus as a leader. Bass and Riggio (2006) observe that in the social context, essentially transformational leadership is a popular concept apart from inspirational leadership. Followers desire to feel empowered especially if they are devoted and efficient. Robert House’s theory of charismatic leadership in 1976 arises from this essence (Bass and Riggio, 2006, p. 211). This concept gave rise to transformational leadership structured by Bass and his associates. Spartacus is a brilliant example of charismatic leader and entails transformational leadership through his actions. His charisma essentially comes from his boldness, strong motivation and honesty which prevents him from choosing the path of escape even when he gets the chance and instead choose death by attacking the strong Roman forces. Historically presented as a renowned figure, Spartacus in the film has come out just a commoner, who wishes to have a family, a peaceful life, but finally it is the system that makes him a gladiator, a rebel, and then a mythical figure or a tragic hero, who finally fails to triumph over the system. Shaw (2001) observes that the written historical documents of Greek and Roman historians Spartacus and the slave war that he has organized took a different shape, but while it has been presented in the film it appears to be filled with humane attributes and suggestion of unconquerable human spirit, occupied with the in the quest to achieve their own freedom (Shaw, 2001, p. 131). Finally, eternal appeal of the film would not have been possible unless it received the touch of Kubrick’s genius. Due to the genius touches of the director, the film has remained one of the greatest films ever made. For instance, “The first meeting in the cell between Spartacus and Varinia originally had a full dialogue, but Kubrick insisted on shooting it more visually, to greater mythic effect. ” (Elley, 1984, p. 110) It has been general inclination of human beings to grant mythical grandeur to the historical incidents as well as figures.   Kubrick’s understanding of mass psychology and handling of mythical grandeur as well as humane attributes has acted also as one of the most important reasons for success of the film. References Bass, B. M. & R. E. Riggio, (2006), Transformational Leadership, London: Routledge. Elley, D. (1984), The epic film: myth and history, London: Routledge Khoo, H. S. & G. Burch (2008), The ‘dark side’ of leadership personality and transformational leadership: An exploratory study, Personality & Individual Differences, 2008, 44(1), 86-97 Kubrick, S. (director), Douglas, K. & L. Olivier (performers), (1960), Spartacus [motion picture], USA: Bryna Productions Kruglanski, A. W. , Pierro, A, Higgins, E. T. (2007), Regulatory Mode and Preferred Leadership Styles: How Fit Increases Job Satisfaction, Basic & Applied Social Psychology, June, 29(2), 137-149 Ludwig, M. S. (2010), More Perspectives on Leadership and Followship: A Response to Elizabeth Barrette, Communities, Fall, 148, 34-75 Shaw, B. D. (2001), Spartacus and the slave wars: a brief history with documents, London: Palgrave Macmillan Vecchio, R. P. , Justin, J. E. & C. Pearce, (2008), The utility of transactional and transformational leadership for predicting performance and satisfaction within a path-goal theory framework, Journal of Occupational & Organizational Psychology, March, 81(1), 71-82. Read More