Brave heart and Leadership Theories
Brave heart is the movie chosen for discussion and the leadership concepts to be elaborated upon include Traits Theory, Transformational Leadership theory and Contingency Theory. Main characters of the story include William Wallace William who is basically a Scottish rebel and leads an uprising movement against Edward, who is the English Ruler. Since he grew up in a family where he lost his father and brothers in the quest of freeing Scotland, he takes upon him to free his land from the tyrannical ruler of England.
William Wallace, as explained earlier, grew up in a household where everyone had been involved in the conquest of freeing their country from the ruler to end his tyrannical rule. In essence, Wallace grew up absorbing the traits and qualities of leadership, spirit and justice from his own family and household. The movie starts with the nobility of Scotland being hanged and Wallace’s father and brother going to fight against England along with their clan.
Since then, Wallace lived with his uncle and learnt his values of fighting and justice from there on. The trait theory justifies his thinking and logic during leadership since Wallace had been around fighting and nobility since his birth and therefore, learnt his skills and built his intelligence by being around the duels between Scotts and English. His legendary skills include his cunning and logic in the midst of fighting and war, and his bravery and intelligence in creating defense attacks for his cavalry.
The next theory under discussion is the contingency theory of leadership. The contingency theory of leadership indicates that the leader adapts to various facilities and vicinities around him or her and develops a leadership style that fits the circumstances. In order to prove himself, Wallace undertook upon himself to become a leader for his clan and even though he was an ordinary man and not of noble birth, fight against the English to gain Scotland as a free nation.
In the movie, we see that he basically had to prove himself before he became the leader for his crowd. This is an indication of the contingency theory, since he had to adapt to the circumstances before gaining the strength and trust of his clan around him. Therefore, he took action whenever it was required, and in many cases, risked his own life in order to save other peoples’ lives. He then went ahead to lead his people in wars and battles. Moreover, he would fight with all his might to win the battles he chose for himself.
In that way, he would define his objective and fight for it to attain his objectives in the best possible manner. The contingency theory fits him in this regard, as we see that Wallace would adapt himself to the situation, and how the circumstances would call, and then he would show his strength and might to lead his people in the battles that ensued. The next theory under discussion is transformational leadership theory. As it is known, Wallace was not of noble birth, nor did he grow up learning to fight in battles.
He was, nonetheless, an exceptional fighter and a strategist that led him to success and helped him lead people in battles. His only aim was to fight for freedom which was basically due to his circumstances and the way he grew up. His circumstances led him to put up a fight against the system and achieve his means which he did so quite successfully. He emulated success in his leadership since he grew up to be a fighter led through by his circumstances. His transformation came about by learning to live against the system and growing to fight against it.
