By: Heishnan Lakeshwar Singh
“Great men are not born great, they grow great …”
– Mario Puzo, The Godfather.
I enjoy watching The Godfather, an American crime film. I seriously admire the work of Mario Puzo. He must have done lots of research, study and work very hard before making this wonderful story. Yes, I am a big fan of The Godfather. Don’t perceive me as criminal. I am against the all kind of crime.There is a saying, if the student is ready to learn, everything and every person around him is a teacher. Considering this statement as correct, if you ask me what you learned from this movie, my answer would be obviously not how to do crime successfully. Instead, my answer would be the leadership style that performs in a very undesirable and difficult environment. You can find in the movie that there is a huge difference between the leadership style of Michael and Sonny. Sonny is the big brother, after his father he is the person to handle his father’s business, selected by nature as a leader. Michael is the youngest son, who was least interested to join his father’s business but because of the circumstances he was forced to take care of his father’s business as a leader.
Sonny (Santino Corleone) is sincere in his business and he honestly work for the welfare of his family business. Even though his intention is correct he could not help his father and also he had to lose his life in the middle. He is aggressive and his temper is very fragile. He is extrovert and he is transparent of his feelings, he is very bad at hiding it. Many a time his father has to stop him from opening his mouth. He leads by his emotion, he lacks reasoning and because of that he was easily fall into the trap of enemy. He has a fault in his character too. Lady is a weakness for him. The problem is he doesn’t take it as weakness, he takes it as strength. Sonny is not a good listener too.Michael is my favorite character in this movie. The reasons I like Michael in this movie are given below.
· Unlike his brother Michael is a man of reason, not allowed emotions to override him. When he gets angry he doesn’t lost his temper, instead he acts on it and make sure that his work is done, and his purpose is fulfilled.
· He is a good listener, he listens and observes very carefully. He analyzes the words he listened and knows whom to believe.
· He is a family man; he loves his family, wife and kids. He is a responsible man. Being responsible man he handles his responsibility very well in his business.
· He has the patience that his brother doesn’t have. And that makes him very successful in his business. Having patience helps in mastering the power of time and helps him in hitting the target in right time.
· Michael is respected by his team because of his confidence. He is bold in taking the tough decision at times, which is an important trait to be possessed by a great leader.
At last he is the guy who saved the business.
Here I am not talking about learning how to do crime successfully. I am writing about the human behavior, emotions and management skills associated with this in dealing the business. The negotiation, competing with the competitors, trust versus mistrust among the team members and business partners, from whom to seek advice, how to take right decision and how to solve the crisis etc. are few things that every business man and managers also have to do in their career. And this movie talks a lot like case study on these issues, which looks very much real, even though it is a fictional story.
(The writer is Head (Academic & Admin), JCRE Global College, Babupara, Imphal. He can be reached to: [email protected])
