Leadership In The Movie Hidden Figures By Theodore Melfi

Hidden Figures is a film based on a remarkable true story about three colored women in the 1960s. The movie follows the lives of Dorothy Vaughn, Mary Jackson, and Kathrine Johnson. These women used their intellect at NASA to contribute to the launch of the first American into space. Hidden Figures also represents the contribution of these women to society. They helped put a man in space, yet they didn’t receive the proper appreciation during their time. Hidden Figures helps give those women gratitude for all that they did for NASA and the United States. Even though this film acknowledges their achievements, it recognizes the hardships the women faced while working for NASA as well as the hardships of all other African American women in the workplace. A few of the hardships they faced were sexism, discrimination, and ageism.

Adapted from the book by Margot Lee Shetterly and directed by Theodore Melfi, Hidden Figures is a film based on the true stories of three black women (Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, & Katherine Johnson) working for NASA in 1960’s. Dorothy Vaughan, played by Octavia Spencer in the film, was a programmer and Mary Jackson, played by Janelle Monae in the film, was an engineer. Dorothy passed away in 2008 and Mary in 2005. Katherine Johnson, a mathematician played by Taraji P. Henson, is now 98 years old and still resides with her husband Corporal Jim Johnson in Hampton, Virginia where the film is set. These women collectively played a pivotal role in sending the first American into space and eventually to the moon. A critical analysis of the film reveals the history and dynamics of racial domination institutionally and interpersonally as well as prejudices and challenges faced by women in particular.

Leadership is, and always has been, a vital aspect of social and economic constructs. It is essential to the survival of societies, industries, organizations, and virtually any group of individuals that come together for a common purpose. However, leadership is difficult to define in a single, definitive sense. As such, theories of leadership, what constitutes a great leader, and how leaders are made have evolved constantly throughout history, and still continue to change today in hopes of improving upon our understanding of leadership, its importance, and how it can be most effective in modern organizational cultures.

Through Frederick Douglass’s, Sam Houston’s, and my own life, being fearless, determined, and dependable has helped us be great leaders. In all great leaders, character plays an important part, for it defines the way they will interact with people and situations. Leaders tend to have strong traits, courage and ambition, for example.

Furthermore, in the film “Remember the Titans I could find the purpose of this assignment to demonstrate my knowledge and applying some leadership theories such as Peer Leadership, Participative Leadership, and Initiating Structure leadership. With this leadership styles, I show how are they used in the movies and how they were

The 2016 historical / drama film, Hidden Figures directed by Theodore Melfi explores the themes of racism and sexism in America during the 1960’s. These themes expresses Theodore Melfi’s intention of this film is displaying that sexism and racism is hard to abolish. Melfi uses visual and verbal features of dialogue, costume and symbolism to contribute to the director’s intention.

Throughout recent history, the definition of leadership has been the subject of a vast number books, articles, and essays. Countless authors have attempted define the ability to lead in a tangible way. They have scrutinized on how one becomes a leader and how one successfully leads. Because the ability to lead is so ambiguous and no one can follow a definable set of steps to become a leader, many authors have use examples of leaders to illustrate their views on the subject. And even in the limited scope of time that is the history of the United States, dozens of men and women have lead Americans through their words, beliefs, and actions. Whether they are appointed leaders such as President George Washington or Thomas Jefferson, or leaders of worthwhile cause such as Susan B. Anthony or Martin Luther King Jr., these leaders provide a blueprint that if examined carefully, can provide useful advice for those aspiring to become great leaders. And for Donald T. Phillips, the American leader whose life “still inspires and moves people from all walks of life” and provides an example of leadership that is without equal is Abraham Lincoln (Phillips). In his book Lincoln on Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times Phillips provides 15 overarching leadership qualities that Lincoln followed all throughout his life. By describing how Lincoln exhibited each of these qualities thoroughly, Phillips then relates how potential leaders today can duplicate those same qualities in their

This research will explain how different leadership theories directly were applied to situations in the movie “Remember the Titans”. Although only a few of the theories were available at the time, the individuals exhibited sound leadership and follower ship identified by modern research on leadership. This paper will visit several leadership theories and methods from respected sources and compare and contras some situations to current situations experienced with modern theories.

Traditionally, analysis on roles for effective leadership surround corporate or military settings with clearly defined problems, discernable issues, and areas where hypothesis can be made, models formed, predictions tested, and outcomes verified. Analyzing a film like Seabiscuit for the roles of leadership present many interesting questions about leadership and what it means to be a leader. The film Seabiscuit chronicles the lives of individuals as they become intertwined to produce an outcome, training a horse to race. At what point do individuals stop seeing themselves, in their daily lives, as individuals and begin seeing themselves as members of groups having to take on leadership and

In the Leadership Challenge, 4th edition, it is Kouzes & Posner (2007) intention to present a road map for individuals to follow on their leadership journey. The authors stress that “leadership is not a gene and it’s not an inheritance.” Leadership they assert is “an identifiable set of skills and abilities that are available to all of us” (p. 23). They make clear that the “great person” theory of leadership is “plain wrong.” Leaders are our everyday heroes who do extraordinary things on a regular basis (p. 23).

The 1989 movie “Glory” shows the true meaning of leadership and sacrifices that need to be made within a group of people in order to show what team work is really about. During the film many tensions were high specially because it happened during the time of The American Civil War and people of colored were being allowed to join and become soldiers. In the movie everyone had the opportunity to meet one another and sent down the rules and regulations that needed to be followed in order for everyone to succeed together. However, there are certain characters that will be closely looked at in order to understand their behavior, the type of leaders that they are, and the way they handle things in a certain way.

Katherine Johnson is the main focus in the movie. She gets moved from the West computers where the colored women work to work for Al Harrison who is the director of the space test group in the East Area. Katherine Goble Johnson becomes Harrison’s analytical geometry computer. When she gets there one of the men give her the trash can because he thinks that she is the custodian. Also, Katherine goes to get a cup of coffee and all the men stare at her. The next day there is a coffee pot that says colored. Katherine goes to poor it but the pot is empty. Then Katherine has to use the bathroom and asks her supervisor where’s the bathroom and her supervisor says “I don’t know where your bathroom is.” So she ends up having to run half a mile to the bathroom and back. Further on in the movie Johnson goes to bathroom on a rainy day and when she comes back Al asks her where she goes everyday for 40 minutes. Katherine ends up flipping out explaining that she gets paid poorly,can’t afford pearls,and how she feels because all of them don’t wanna touch the coffee pot just because she’s a colored woman. In the end Katherine goes on to perform calculations for the Apollo II mission to the moon and space shuttle. The movie states that in 2016 there was a building dedicated for her and her work with space travel called Katherine Goble Johnson Computational Building. Also, at the age of ninety seven she was awarded with the Presidential medal of freedom. One of Katherine’s colleges that

From the beginning of the movie, the smart mind of Katherine Johnson; she was a real genius that humanity needs. After finishing school, she applied to work for NASA. She could solve the math problems that the white men could not solve. When she first came to work at the Space Task Group, which is calculating the coordinates of takeoff and landing for the spaceship, she got none of the respect from her white colleagues, especially Paul Stafford, but she was not discouraged. She gained the attention of her boss, Mr. Al Harrison. One day, Mr. Harrison couldn’t find her in the office, when she got back to her work, Mr. Harrison was mad at her and ask:” Where has she been?” Then, she replied that she has to walk half miles away from the office, where she was working on the building that has a bathroom for colored peoples. After that, Harrison went to the building that Katherine has to walk half miles every day to go

In this paper I will identify and explain the leadership concepts that I learned in this class using characters from the film Finding Nemo. To do so I will provide examples of transformative leadership and describe the impact it had on others. I will also explain how the characters acquired their leadership effectiveness by identifying experiences that were instrumental in their leadership development.

Leadership has played a valuable role throughout history in countless leaders and even followers. Although some of the greatest leaders in history lead for a more notorious cause, the leadership skills they conveyed and followed were key to the success of their goal and accomplishments. I believe Oskar Schindler was a great leader for many reasons because of how he dealt with the Nazi party during the Holocaust and how he adapted to change and from that change resulted in saving over a thousand Jews from death. Oskar Schindler shows how sometimes a leader has to change his values and therefore his actions to accommodate the surroundings and situation. As a result to this change