Management Techniques in Lean on Me

One of the main objectives of an organization is to beat its counter part in our possible way. In order for an organization to insure that they must be good at leading, planning, organizing and controlling their resources and materials to accomplish performance objectives. In other words management. There are four main types of management, Classical, Behavioural, Quantitative and now the Modern Approach to Management. The Modern Approach states that there is no one good way of management. A successful organization utilizes all the types of management. A good example of this is the movie Lean on Me, starring Morgan Freeman as Joe Clark, the protagonist of the movie. Joe is a very talented teacher, who takes a lot of pride in his work, but due to certain events (budget cuts), he has to make some very key decisions upon his future at East Side High, New Jersey. After the resignation of Joe Clark, things go back to worse at East Side High, so after 20 years Joe is once again called upon to take the duty of the principal of this once great school. His goal was to accomplish a 75% average on the state’s basic skills test. This goal might be easy at any school, but then again East Side High was not just another school. The previous year the score was 33%. The school was filled with drug dealer, crime, graffiti and other things. Therefore it required a miracle to increase the school’s literacy average by approximately 40%.

Joe Clark uses many different management theories, some controversial in order to achieve his goal. The movie was set in mid 1980s, so at that time Modern Approach to Management didn’t come in to being, but Joe did seem to work like the Modern Approach to Management. He used many different theories to accomplish his difficult task. Classical Management assumes that people are rational. They make logical decisions in order to maximize their gain. Classical Management includes the Administrative Principles of Henri Fayol. Joe utilized Henri’s rules (Foresight, Organization, Command, Coordination and Control) during his term as the principle in order to achieve that 75% average of the basic skills test. At one side Joe had all the enemies that he had mad due to his controversial tactics and on the other he has true friends like, Thomas Sams. Due to Thomas’s help Joe was able to anticipate the actions being done by the police and some of the community member’s in order to get him fired. Joe had locked the school doors with chains in order to keep the suspended students outside of school, but at the same time he was breaking the fire code. He then organized a plan with his fellow teachers and made codes for communication for the walkie-talkie when there was any trouble in the future. He commanded every teacher to follow this rule, and coordinated them and the students during this process. On many occasions Joe was control the activities in his school in order to hide his evidence of the chains being used to lock the doors. Henri Fayol also stated some principles to guide managerial action. Joe once again put Henri’s principles to a good use. With the help of the walkie-talkie everyone was able to communicate well during the time of troubles (scalar chain principle). Every staff member was asked to report to Joe at any time, as he was the principle of the school. He also made himself in charge of all the activities at East Side High (unity of command and direction principle). After Classical Management came along the Behavioural Approach to Management. Behavioural Management assumes that people are social and self actualizing. Theories associated with Behavioural Management that were used in the movie include, Hawthorne Study, Douglas McGregor’s Theory X, and Chris Argyris’s Personality and Organization. Joe utilized the Hawthorne effect which states that people’s feelings, attitudes and relationships with coworkers influence their performance. Joe was very strict with students which disciplined the students and it also made them realize that they have the potential to do so much more than what they are doing now. On the other hand, this strict behaviour was also disguised as love to some students like Sam and Kaneesha, which influenced them to do better in school. The main theory that Joe Clark used was Theory X. Theory X assumes people dislike work, lack ambition, are irresponsible and prefer to be led. As soon as Mr. Clark enters the building and his first meeting, he starts to boss people around. He tells them you had your chance,