Movie Review

Leadership is a significant aspect of an organization and other sectors. A leader is one who can influence his followers to achieve a common goal. Several leaders have different ways of guiding others into achieving a common vision. The leadership style an individual uses significantly impacts his people and the organization. Effective leaders can easily achieve their vision by influencing their followers. Through effective leadership, individuals integrate their goals to meet the company's needs making it easy to work on a common goal. This paper seeks to analyze the movie, The Wolf of Wall Street and explain its leadership qualities. The paper will also review the followership behaviors, decision-making, and how the movie relates to the real world.

Jordan Belfort is the main character who shows leadership qualities in The Wolf of Wall Street. Jordan Belfort is a charismatic and transformational leader who influences his followers significantly. The leader has a unique way of capturing his followers' attention and guiding them to achieve their goals (Black et al., 2019). One of his tactics involves leading by example. As a leader, Belfort uses good examples to show his people how to work and achieve great results (Belfort, 2013). For example, the leader teaches the team ways to negotiate by negotiating as they watch. For example, Belfort tells one of his workers to sell him a pen as a way to teach him negotiation and marketing (Belfort, 2013). This step helps the followers emulate his behaviors and examples when negotiating with others on stock sales. Another leadership quality shown by Belfort is his presence in his people. As seen in the movie, Belfort was present with his team every moment despite success or failure (Belfort, 2013). Most people tend to leave their teams when undergoing success. However, Belfort knew it was necessary to be present in both instances as it was crucial to the company. Despite his various tactics to succeed, the leader significantly influences his people, and his presence motivates others to work hard.

Followership behavior shows the ability to take direction and be influenced by an individual in power. Leadership entails having a great influence on followers and making it easy for them to emulate and take directions (Black et al., 2019). As a result, good leadership requires good followership to enhance the success and achievement of goals. The Wolf of Wall Street is a movie example that shows followership behaviors (Belfort, 2013). Belfort was a conformist follower who did everything he was tight without questioning its moral or ethical grounds. As the movie begins, Belfort works for Mark Hanna, who taught him how to be a stockbroker. His mentor, Mark Hanna, used illegal tactics to gain financial success. Additionally, the mentor taught him that successful stock brokers used prostitution and drugs to stay sane in the real world (Belfort, 2013). Eventually, Belfort started his company and recruited individuals whom he taught how to stock using the tactics shown by his mentor (Belfort, 2013). As a result, Belfort builds trust among his employees, who get devoted to work and attain success. Through the tactics taught by the leader, the employees achieve success. However, the employees are critical thinkers who do not engage in most unethical and immoral behaviors portrayed by the leader. This step keeps them safe when Belfort and his close colleagues get arrested for several criminal charges.

Decision-making is a crucial part of the company as it significantly influences its success or failure. One of the factors that affected decision-making in Belfort's company was situational influences. Situational influences in the company entail the culture and job autonomy of the place (Black et al., 2019). As taught by Mark, Belfort learned unethical ways of gaining financial success in the brokerage industry (Belfort, 2013). This industry mainly focuses on money-making, which makes most individuals ignore the ethical implications of their actions. The financial success gained by following unethical channels also made it easy to follow through with the tactics. The leader's personal goals also influenced his decisions. As an ambitious leader, Belfort was only concerned with making money, parties, drugs, and prostitution (Belfort, 2013). The lack of personal ethical values affected his decisions as he did not focus on the implications of his actions. As Mark taught Belfort, drugs were an important part of success in the industry. Additionally, Belfort discussed with his wife how selling penny stock could not make him rich (Belfort, 2013). These factors showed the leader's desire to be rich, which eventually influenced his decisions.

The movie is a reflection of real-world experiences as it also portrays the real life of Jordan Belfort. In the movie, several issues have been highlighted that are present in the real world. For instance, the movie shows mentors' and leaders' impact on people. Like Mark, leaders affect how their followers view the world and the actions they take to be successful (Belfort, 2013). Additionally, the movie presents the ethical issues that people face in their companies. Drug misuse is an example of an ethical problem faced in the world. The abuse of these substances to make one successful has a long-term negative influence. The movie's ending, where the leader eventually loses his company and assets while getting charged with several offenses, also applies to people evading their ethical responsibilities. Therefore, the movie is a significant example of the brokerage industry and its influence on people in the current world.

References

Belfort. (2013, December 25). The Wolf of Wall Street [Video]. IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0993846/

Black, J. S., Gardner, D. G., Pierce, J. L., & Steers, R. M. (2019). Organizational behavior.