Gladiator Supervisory Techniques Essay

The movie Gladiator shows many types of supervisory techniques. Leaders and rulers were found in every single scene of the movie. They were either leaders of the ring, leaders of slaves or rulers of countries. However, the most negative leadership style we came across was that of Marcus Aurelius’ son, Commodus. Commodus did not develop good supervisory techniques growing up. Marcus Aurelius makes it a point to tell Commodus that it is his fault as a father why Commodus isn’t the leader he should be. In the movie, this scene leads to Commodus murdering his own father. First, the supervisory techniques that Commodus used were only effective due to the way he used them. Commodus used positional power over personal power, which is described as people doing stuff for you only because they are forced to (Woodbury, D., Cohen, E., & Zayszly, J. (Eds.). (2001). Most of the senate, his commanders, the common people, and even his sister hated or feared Commodus. He was not honorable, and jailed or killed anyone that stood in his way. Commodus did not have the communication skills, or empathy to use

Maximus’ main technique on getting soldiers and people to do things was by treating them with respect and dignity (Afholderbach, S. E. (1998)). Because of this, he used personal power in almost every decision he needed to make, and the people and soldiers would follow. When I was in the military, I only used positional power when I first became a leader and was learning, and when it was needed for hard headed disrespectful soldiers. Some soldiers just didn’t care for anyone due to their time coming to a screeching halt with the military. I used personal power because my soldiers were loyal to me, they respected me, and did whatever I needed them to do when told. Personal power also poured over into my personal life, which allowed me to get through hard times without