1. First Reflection Paper by Andrew Jaco
86710-LEAD-6050-02Organizational Leadership
My challenge was to organize a brand new annual film festival from my pure
conception and vision when I was in college during my undergrad years. I had an
idea that would be different than other film festivals that I have seen at that time in
the 1980’s. The new ideas would make it challenging while being exciting and
something new for the university to see. The challenges were to do this without
charging film submission fees, without charging the public to see it, drawing a big
crowd without an advertising budget while going to schoolfulltime, as well as
holding a part time university audio visual technician job. The last challenging
element would be to have the film festival run annually long after I graduate and
after I located elsewhere from that university. This paper is to explore what
happened along with the successesand pitfalls of doing this annual event using
what was learned in the first four chapters of the Leadership text written by Peter
G. Northhouse.
After studying leadership styles and traits in the text and periodicals, I had a lot
to learn and also discovered what I did well in putting on this unique film festival
program for the university. The successes were that the crowds got bigger each
2. year and I was able to get access to bigger theatres and auditoriums without paying
auditorium rentals from anyone’s pockets including my pocket. This tookskill,
management, resourcefulness, persistence, technical knowhow and most of all,
leadership. The three approaches of leadership that will be explored in this
reflection paper as to how the unique annual film festival got off the ground will
be: the trait approach, the skills approachand the style approachintertwined
throughout this paper as I describewhat happened in getting the film festival off
the ground.
The trait approachto leadership describes what things are comfortable for me
that would fit my personality and are inherent, or what I was born with according
to the text: (Leadership: Theory and Practice 6th Edition by Peter G. Northhouse,
chapter 2). The Skills approach to leadership describes my competency level as a
leader at that time and is broken down into three basic skills such as technical,
human and conceptual (Northhouse chapter 3). The style approachto leadership
involves what I actually did regardless of what my traits and skills are and are also
broken down into two basic behaviors such as task behaviors and relationship
behaviors (Northhouse chapter 4).
The first step to getting the film festival going was to get a place to show films
as far in advance as possible with a guarantee of reservation without costto
anybody at the university or me becauseI was not going to charge anyone for film
3. submissions nor charge admission. The obstacle was how to cover the costof the
place without charging admission. The leadership style that I had was to treat
others fairly under relationship by publically thanking people for the auditorium
during the festival to publicize them while making them feel comfortable in the
idea as well as explain the conceptof the program which resulted in bypassing the
rental of the auditorium.
Once I got the official date for the auditorium, the second step was to get flyers
made out that asked for film submissions giving the date and times of the film
festival itself as well as film submission deadlines. It was a double promotion on
one flier. To pay for thousands of flyers circulated locally, I got a sponsorand
thanked them in the flyer which promoted their business while the festival was also
promoted in the same flyer. This style of leadership of treating others fairly under
relationship again by thanking them helped get what was needed despite the zero
budget. The flyer also promoted free admission and free film submissions. Certain
leadership traits had to work to get these important first two steps off the ground:
Being articulate. I had to explain things well to keep people engaged and interested
since there was going to be no revenue for the auditorium rental and no revenue to
the printers to get the flyers printed. I also had to be self-confident that they are
going to associated with a unique film festival and that I know what I was doing
since I was a film major during my under grad years. I had to also be trustworthy
4. in that I was going to promote their help in making the festival possibleduring the
festival as promised. Since I scored high in the technical aspects of the skills
approachto leadership, I explained some of the new technical aspects to the film
festival presentation that was going to be new at the time to get their attention
instead of just promoting what films might be shown. That gained more curiosity
to get the flyers and the auditorium for free.
The next step was to get to deal with the film submissions that came in, and
there were plenty of them to go through. Some were sound, and some were silent. I
promised an interesting show. Forthe silent films I had to get a keyboard player
that had skills in thinking up music on the fly for silent moving images. For the
music department, I made a few flyers (again without cost – using those same
leadership skills, traits and styles again) that asked for a keyboardist to play live
music during the show for the silent films. The keyboard flyer was easy, but only
one keyboardist came forward. The keyboardist was reluctant to volunteer their
time to play without pay at first. To accomplish this, there was work to do and I
was fearful of getting no keyboardist at all. They want to get paid. This was a
challenge with a zero budget. Keyboardist got to play for the silent films during the
show for free because I showed flexibility as my leadership style. I offered the
keyboardist the option to have the silent films play between the sound films during
the show so he can take breaks between them; or have all the silent films shown
5. together back to back to get it over with while have continuous playing on the
keyboards. This showed flexibility in my leadership style. I gained trust from him
because he was going to be thanked during the film festival – a good leadership
trait in action. There was a big gap in the deadline for film submission and the film
festival date to give time for the keyboardist to rehearse also by seeing just the
silent films beforehand. This was good planning as a good leadership style since I
prefer planning projects out by gauging how long project steps could take to get
done.
The last step before the show was to get programs made and copied for free that
listed the films, and the thanking of people who helped me get the show to happen.
This was difficult because the printer offered the first ones for free the first time for
the first flyers and wanted to charge for the programs. I lost the battle there. To
overcome, I asked the University Program Council to make the programs since the
film festival became part of their campus programs. Determination as a trait was
needed to avoid giving up becausea film festival without a program to pass out
would be disastrous because I would have broken promises made to the sponsors
who would have lost the trust in me that I had established. The programs were the
method of thanking the sponsors,the keyboard musician, etc. The University
Program Council became the sponsoralmost at the last minute. Knowing a fellow
member of the program council helped. At a private meeting that I was not a
6. member of, the fellow member was delegated the task of convincing the council
(without me being there) on their next meeting to sponsorthe event so programs
can get made without costto me. Traits such as persistence, articulation self-
confidence and self-assurance, and determination paid off here as well as learning
to delegate authority. I was flexible in my leadership style in getting the programs
made out just as long as no film is left out and no sponsorwas left out.
The only thing that was not delegated was the presentation. As a leader, I felt
had to demonstrate my strong skills approachto leadership which was the technical
part of the skills. I felt I had to “show off” somewhere. This was part of my trait of
being outgoing while being technical under the skills area. This was to set up and
run all of the equipment during the show to show media presentation skills that
dazzled, and thrilled the audiences and the filmmakers that showed up with their
films so they can be impressed also. The technical fascinates me along with paying
attention to detail and being good at making things work which scored well in the
technical skills approachto leadership.
In conclusion, I had a very balanced form of leadership traits, skills and style
without being a “tyrant” who likes to use a “coercive” leadership approach
discussed in the text in chapter one (Northhouse chapter one) telling people what to
do.
