Transactional Leadership In The Film Inception

The leadership ideas conveyed in the movie, Inception, are shown diversely within the characters, the inception team, and the target organization of their mission. The members of Dominic Cobb’s team implanting the idea into the subject’s mind have designated roles that exemplify many leadership theories and their effects on the team and their task. These characters in the movie, such as Dom, Ariadne, and Saito all influence each other as leaders in their roles and contribute to their task to place an idea that would change Robert Fischer’s subconscious and mind forever. Leadership concepts such as the Glass Cliff, influence tactics, power relations, etc., shown in their “dream” team, are evident within the successful completion of Saito’s task

II. Transactional Leadership By definition, Transactional Leadership is “when leaders and followers” are “in some type of exchange relationship to get needs met” (Leadership: Enhancing the lessons of experience, pg. 293, 2015). This exchange between a leader and a follower is observable in Inception between Saito and Dom. Dom’s ultimate goal is to be able to see his children in the United States and he is not able to do this as he ran away from the United States to evade an accusation that he killed his wife. Upon meeting Saito, Dom discovers that Saito reached out to him knowing that he was a master of extraction within a person’s subconscious. However, Saito asks for an idea to be planted into his biggest business rival’s mind so that he would decide to dissolve his father’s company in exchange for Dom’s freedom and a pardoning of the crime he had been accused of. Saito becomes his

41, 2015). An initial challenge for Dom to achieve inception along with his team was that he must find an architect as good as he is. He hides the reasoning from his team at first why he cannot be the architect to construct the dreamscape in Fischer’s conscious as he is scared to reveal the eminent danger of Mal’s projection. Initially, he finds an architect in which he tests his abilities within the subconscious of Saito. However, Nash sells him out to Saito as he told Saito about the structure and the map of the dream before Dom and his team test their abilities within his mind. This causes Nash to be dropped from the team by Saito and Dom as he wanted materialistic gain. He then consults his father, a professor for a university of architecture in Paris, to use one of his students to fulfill the role. Dom’s father recommends her best student, Ariadne. Dom chooses her and immediately tests her abilities by introducing her to the dream world and letting her showcase her architectural abilities. Dom’s selection of a female candidate for the architect position within his team after the decrease in performance and failure of a male candidate to suite the job embodies the Glass Cliff idea in action. Dom selected her as he knew Mal’s projection would be much more dangerous