Leadership In Mean Girls

Mean Girls tells the story of Cady Heron’s transition from 12 years of home school in Africa to public high school in the United States when her mother gets offered tenure at a nearby college. Upon her arrival, Cady bonds with Janice and Damian who are considered apart of the “out crowd”. Janice and Damian give Cady the scoop on all of the social cues and how to navigate her new territory. When she is invited to join the most popular clique in the school, “The Plastics” Cady is placed in the middle of revenge and is encouraged to invade the lives of the girls to steal their secrets and eventually uproot their lives. Although this movie is primarily focused on revenge (which can be correlated with coercion, the least ideal form of leadership)

it indirectly shows the characteristics of any traditional American high school: there are rules to abide by, chains of command, power, and influencers, all of which play an important role in leadership.

According to Northouse leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal. Influence is the glue that holds leadership together for without influence leadership does not exist. (Northouse, P. 5) The concept of power is related to leadership through influence. Regina George, the “Queen Bee” of The Plastics, held a great amount of referent power among her peers and even some superiors; the boys wanted to date her and the girls worshipped the ground she walked on. Referent power is based on followers’ identification and liking for the leader. (Northouse, P. 10) This is evident in the scene where Cady and Janice attempt to sabotage Regina’s wardrobe by cutting her shirt in an inappropriate way, that resulted in a fashion trend across campus. This scene also establishes that Regina was considered to have a bit of expert power in fashion trends. Her status as head of the social kingdom had everyone around her yearning for her attention and approval.
Among her friends Regina showed what Blake and Mouton called the authority-compliance (9,1) style of leadership.

This leadership style has a strong focus on task requirements and less emphasis on concerns for people. When she asked for something she wanted it done immediately with no regard to what the needs of her followers were. When Gretchen wanted to make the word “fetch” a trend at school Regina halted her and demanded that she stop. On the other hand Regina’s mother, Mrs. George had a country club (1,9) leadership style. She was more concerned with being the “cool mom” than being an authoritative figure. This is reflected in the scene where she meets Cady for the first time she emphasized that there were no rules in her house and even went as far as to offer 16 year old Cady alcohol. She was exceptionally eager to be “in the mix” with the girls, making more of a friend than a parent.
Mentioned earlier, most of the movie is focused on using some form of coercion as power. A person exerting coercive power uses his or her followers to their own benefit. Most evident would be Cady’s plan to sabotage Regina’s throne by manipulating her closest friends, helping her gain weight instead of losing it, and sabotaging her relationship with Aaron Samuels to get his

attention.
Both Regina and Cady had a way of managing their friends. They provided their followers with the bare minimum of needs, Daniel Pink’s Motivation 2.0 theory: whether it was attention, compliments, or defending their honor. In Daniel Pink’s Drive: The Truth About Motivation, he states that management is built on certain assumptions. It presumes that to take action or move forward we need a prod – or we’d remain happily in place, in essence, content with mediocrity. GIVE EXAMPLE!!!
Taking a look at Mumford’s Skills Model we can examine the relationship between a leader’s knowledge and skills, and the leader’s performance. If we look at Cady’s leadership tactics, she exhibited (34)
Janice, who would be considered an outcast of the school fosters what Northouse characterizes as a opportunist. An opportunistic leader adapts his or her leadership style to gain the most personal advantage. In the introduction of the movie Janice has the team management (9,9)