The Blind Side The Blind Side represents many characteristics of The Key and management leadership. The Law of Attraction is used many times in this movie. One example would be when Leigh Anne Tuohy is told that she is changing Michael’s life and she responds that he is changing hers. This shows that by the Tuohy family helping Michael Oher in return he is giving them benefits back. The Key is the basis of the leadership role the Tuohy’s found themselves in. They showed a genuine care and respect for Michael which translated to his overall success. Their commitment to advancing his life in a positive way personifies The Key.
The Tuohy’s also used The Key in team and family building. Throughout the movie the importance of being a family is stressed. When Sean asked Michael if he would like to become a part of this family he replied I kinda thought I already was. This shows that the Tuohy’s showed trust and commitment a vital theme of The Key. Leigh Anne also used her family as a comparison to Michael’s teammates to get him to realize he needed to protect them like they were his family. The Blind Side demonstrates the lesson that accomplishments cannot be achieved by one person but through a collection of people with a common goal.
The Tuohy’s used many strategies from the stages in The Key to lead in changing Michael’s life for the better. For one they established a guidance team for Michael to rely on. They used a group of people with strong values of trust commitment and caring. Then they created and communicated an encouraging vision and strategy for Michael to follow. They also used the step of removing important barriers to change which unfortunately was his biological mother and the environment he grew up in. Furthermore the Tuohy’s empowered Michael to achieve short term goals such as improving his grades.
They then maintained and built on these goals to ensure the changes were complete. The Tuohy’s were very successful in making sure the transformation was sustained and is still evident today with their continued commitment to his life. The Blind Side shows some examples of effective responses to stress. The best instance occurred when Michael got into a car wreck. Leigh Anne dealt with this stress using some characteristics from The Key. The accident was a negative external force and she overcame the stress by using her power to view the situation as a positive. Instead of worrying bout the damaged vehicle she focused on the fact that Michael had done a courageous thing by stopping the air bag from hitting S. J. She was able to interpret the event differently by using her thoughts and feelings in a positive light. She was able to change the stress into an opportunity. The Key was the main factor allowing for her response to this stress. The Tuohy’s used The Key when dealing with conflicts arising from them allowing Michael into their home. Many people had a problem with their decision. The family didn’t allow negative external forces to dictate how they were going to manage their unique situation.
They knew they were doing the right thing and that’s all that mattered. One example of this occurring was when Collins decided to sit and study at Michael’s table instead of listening to her friend’s gossip about him. She showed a willingness to resolve a conflict with a commitment to caring about Michael. Leigh Anne also dealt with a conflict by not allowing her friends to pressure her with negative comments. The Tuohy family’s conviction of doing what’s right and treating others as they would want to be treated were the foundations for responding to conflicts successfully.
The Key allowed them to focus on the solutions to these problems rather than getting involved in unnecessary negative conflicts. As we transition from effective ways to respond to stress, we move into effective ways to deal with and respond to conflicts. This is Section 14 in The Key. The Key discusses what a powerful tool being positive can be, and this stays true to dealing with not only stress, but the conflicts that arise in one’s daily life. In the movie The Blind Side, the amount of conflicts that arise for Michael Oher cannot be described by words.
This young man starts school at essentially an all white school, as a large black male, many students refer to him as “Big Mike. ” As an underprivileged child he does not speak very much in class or outside of class for that matter. The Blind Side essentially is a movie full of conflicts, stress and an abundance of leadership opportunities. Take for instance when Michael started school, the conflict here was the fact that Michael likes to avoid conflict; however he is confronted with it constantly because of his underprivileged childhood.
Another example of conflict responsiveness is when Michael begins to play football after the Tuohy’s took him into their home and began to care for him. This displayed Michael’s ability to reason and related directly to The Key in the fact that although things in his life at this particular time were not at their best, Michael learned how to cope with the downfalls and make the best out of the situations he faced. Michael learned how to deal with problems in his life at a young age, starting at age seven when he was forcefully removed from his mother’s home because of his mom’s drug addiction.
A big obstacle involving conflict responsiveness involves when after selecting Ole’ Miss as the school of his choice, the NCAA requests to meet with him. At the meeting, the woman who he is meeting with constantly interrogates Michael and plants a thought in his head that since both of the Tuohy’s went to Ole’ Miss, that the only reason they took him into their home is because they wanted to nurture Michael and train him athletically, in order to send him to Ole’ Miss and support their alma matter.
One of the undertones brought up throughout the movie is the use of adaptive management leadership, which consequently is section 15 in The Key. The people that support Michael must display a large ability to adapt to different styles of management; just as any great leader or manager should be able to do in their professional and personal life. Take for example when Michael first begins spring football practice and they are all on the field. This is the first time that Michael has ever played football and he literally, knows absolutely nothing about the game or how it is played.
This is where the coach’s adaptive management and leadership come into play. Also, Leigh Anne displays adaptive leadership when she goes out onto the field in the middle of practice and begins comparing the football team to her family and telling Michael that he needs to guard his quarterback as if he were his mother. This also ties in to enhancement of management leadership, section 16 of The Key. Even upon meeting Michael when he was in the playground talking to Collins, her son, she displayed leadership and is extremely directive in the ways that she speaks to Michael.
When Michael went home with the Tuohy’s for the first time, Leigh Anne asks Michael, “Do you have a place to stay tonight Big Mike? ” As he shakes his head no, Leigh Anne follows with, “Don’t you lie to me boy. ” This shows her initiative in going out of her way to take care of someone in need. Another prime example of enhancement of management leadership is when the coach’s initial techniques for training Michael on the field were not working, so it was necessary to modify the leadership strategy of Michael in order to get through to him and everyone involved ith Michael also had to modify how they dealt with Michael’s situation in regards to his academic background. The Tuohy’s and coach got Michael a tutor in order to get his grades up, they taught him how to play football, but most of all they taught him how to love his family. “When relationships with openness and mutual respect exist, those relationships reflect a basically successful entity with the other six responses and more closely related connections with the whole. Leigh Anne Tuohy exemplified a “relational being” in the movie by her willingness to help Michael, who was dealing with true hardships, and eventually turning him into someone that not only loved to play football, but also learned to love life to the fullest. The communication challenge we felt that was showed in the film was Michael’s failure to value and trust in change. There’s a point in the film where Michael feels like he can’t trust Leigh anymore after some miscommunication at the NCAA investigation meeting.
He decided to run back “home,” where he soon realized that “home” was not a place he felt he belonged anymore. “Challenges often inhibit effective thought patterns, and thus create barriers…” Michael felt like he didn’t have a leader anymore in Leigh, and decided to fall back on what had worked for him before; his past. The old ways of doing things always appear safer when there is a lack of strong leadership in your life, and that’s one barrier that plagues us as individuals when we face hardships.
The communication response to this challenge was the Tuohy’s enthusiasm to officially invite Michael into the family, in which Michael replied with, “I kinda thought I already was. ” This quote made our group realize the power of “purposeful trusting. ” Both Michael and the Tuohy’s knew the transition Michael would take from a hopeless little boy to a prideful young man would not come along without various obstacles, but the trust that developed between the two parties paved a path for healthy change that engulfed the “new” Tuohy family. To trust is to be able to believe in a positive outcome despite the disruptions and challenges that are often byproducts of change. ” Leigh Anne Tuohy expresses characteristics of an effective leader by being the cornerstone of her family and the community to which she resides. Her character throughout the movie stands up to do what she feels is the right thing to do, regardless of the naysayers of the community she lives in. The first instance of the movie where Leigh shows her leadership effectiveness is when she sees Michael walking the streets on a cold dark evening.
She tells her husband to pull over and after hearing Michael’s situation asks him if he would like to stay in a warm bed for the night. This action shows Leigh has a strong set of personal values including, “…trust, commitment and caring. ” Another characteristic for leadership effectiveness that is displayed in the film is Leigh’s role as a “facilitator of change. ” Leaders often today believe that they have the power to completely transform a person, and often they fail because they try to push their ideas too hard, too fast.
In the film, Leigh discovers Michael’s strength of a protective instinct, and facilitates change off that strength. During the middle of a practice, while Michael was struggling to grasp a certain play, Leigh walks up to him and explains the concept in terms that he can understand, “This team is your family Michael. When you look at him you think of me, how you have my back. Are you going to protect your family Michael? ” to which Michael replies, “Yes ma’am. ” A leader is most successful when they can help an individual grow while communicating on the individual’s terms and with that a leader is able to draw out the best in that person. .. When you are involved in a leadership role you must be comfortable with supporting change and handling it appropriately. ” Leigh Anne Tuohy spends much of the film trying to help others without any hesitation regarding her own hardships. She’s a devoted mother and plays a big role in her community, so the time she has to sit back and see the good she has done is often hindered by another situation that comes a calling. A very powerful scene comes to fruition at the end up of the film when the Tuohy family is dropping Michael off at Ole Miss to begin his college career.
They are beginning to say their goodbyes when Leigh leaves abruptly to go sit in the car until it’s time to go. Miss Sue, Michael’s tutor, jokingly says, “She’s an onion Michael. You have to peel her back one layer at a time. ” This scene showed our group that, “You will realize that your thoughts and feelings are being returned to you. ” Leigh sees this young man that has grown exponentially right in front of her eyes, and is overtaken by emotion. Michael walks over to the car and gives his mother a big bear hug, a proper goodbye.
At that moment, Leigh realizes that all her hard work and dedication to Michael has not gone unrecognized. Although the film was shined on the transformation of Michael Oher, our group believes that the transformation of Leigh should not go unnoticed. Yeah, she had a great deal of leadership values before she met Michael, but the journey they took together showed Leigh that there’s a lot more to learn out in this big world. I leave you with a quote from the great John Madden, “Self-praise is for losers. Be a winner. Stand for something. Always have class, and be humble. ”
