Lean On Me Analysis

The movie Lean On Me related a lot to things we talked about in class this semester. The first situation was when the head of the district came to Joe and tells him he is nothing and tears him down and that he would not be able to fix the troubled high school. By the head guy doing this to Joe it motivated him to take this as a challenge and created a need for achievement. This is talked about in the motivation chapter, chapter 12. I believe this was the best method of motivating Joe since the high school had so many problems and had so much to be done to turn it around and have the majority pass the basic skills test. The second situation was when Joe was conducting the first staff meeting at the high school. He was very demanding to the teachers and saying things like, “No one talks in my meetings!”, “My word is law”, and “If you don’t like it, quit!”. I related this scene to the leadership chapter, chapter 10. Joe is showing to the staff that he has power, both coercion and legitimate power. I was able to tell this when the staff kept quiet when he raised his voice and started off with these remarks. I agree with Joe’s method of leadership in the staff meeting. It was the first meeting of him being there and he needed to make that first impression on the staff there that things were going to change. The third situation was

This made the student very embarrassed and caused the other students to laugh at him. I related this scene to chapter 11, Individual Behavior. Joe had a strong negative emotion towards students dressing like that in his school. He knew he had to make a point to the students for them to stop. I believe it could have been handled differently so the individual student would not have been embarrassed. I think Joe should have just addressed the students as a whole and not pick out one of the many students not dressed