Butterfly Film Festival: Teaching Transformational Leadership

Abstract

This article outlines an active learning exercise that gives students the opportunity to learn and apply the behaviors of transformational leadership theory. Students watch a brief, prerecorded “before” video depicting transactional manager–employee interactions. Students then revise the script so that the manager exhibits the four I’s of transformational leadership—inspirational motivation, individualized consideration, idealized influence, and intellectual stimulation—and act out the new script in a student-produced “after” video. Our experience demonstrates higher student engagement and better learning outcomes when compared with more passive teaching methods.

Effectiveness of using feature films in organizational behavior education: an empirical investigation

“…The students found it easier to learn about the application of theoretical concepts through films, journal articles, and case studies. Capitano et al. (2022) and Desai et al.…”

“…The students found it easier to learn about the application of theoretical concepts through films, journal articles, and case studies. Capitano et al (2022) and Desai et al (2018) described the process of using films to teach cross-cultural management in a flipped classroom setting. Aoki and dos Santos (2020) found that the use of films in teaching leadership in organizations was valuable.…”

Helping Our Students to Develop Into the Leaders Our World Needs

“…Business schools do this in a number of ways, whether it be full courses devoted to leadership, units in courses such as introductory management or organizational behavior, team projects, or in extracurricular activities. Management Teaching Review has published a number of exercises and articles related to leadership across a range of aspects of the topic, including defining what a leader is (Polin, 2019), preparing to be a leader (Tyran, 2017), how leaders differ (Stratton et al, 2022), and bread and butter concepts like transformational leadership (Capitano et al, 2022).…”