Moneyball Essay

Moneyball is an inspirational movie centered on the character of Oakland Athletics’ general manager, Billy Beane, a former baseball player who was faced with rebuilding an underfunded team that always had their best players constantly robbed by wealthier club. Driven by his hatred of losing, Beane realises the need to radically change how the players are scouted, evaluated and managed if he wants to succeed. Beane became more persuaded to turn the team around after he met with Peter Brand, an economist working as a scout on another team who advised him that he should hire players based on key performance statistics that pointed to undervalued players and immediately believed he’d found the man who understands how to reverse the system of assessing players. However, as the duo begin to acquire players that seem too old,

injured or awkward to play major league baseball, they face rift resistance from the advisory council and the team’s manager, Art Howe, who outrightly refuses the weird ideas.
Skill approach leadership proposes that good leaders have a set of skills that they have developed over time.

As a matter of fact, an effective leader using the skill approach leadership must be strong in the skill areas; technical, human and conceptual.In the movie, Billy Beane exhibited all the three skills approach in various degrees. For example, he had technical skill, had knowledge about baseball having played baseball earlier in life. Plus he had human skill because he was aware of his own perspective on and also aware of the perspective of the advisory council, he coach Art Howe and Peter Brand. Also, he had conceptual skill, he was able to articulate a vision for reviving the Oakland Athletic and there was no going back even when he was ridiculed by others, he adamantly pursued his goal without looking back. My classmates believed that he had displayed problem solving, social solving skills and was able to apply and implement the knowledge acquired but needed to communicate more than he did with the team members because he never communicated his strategy to them, there was lack of alignment between what he is working at and the

team.
In addition to our class discussion, my group agreed that the coach, Art Howe did not display any of the skills approach leadership and needs it desperately to be an effective leader, but our classmates believed that he had technical skill for him to be a coach and we all agreed that if he can be more adaptive and open minded that he will be able to to apply and implement knowledge well. Likewise, we all agreed that Peter Brand had conceptual and technical skills but need to work on his people's’ skill and some of my classmates thinks that Peter will be better off a leader of small groups instead of large groups in big groups. In my opinion, i feel he can learn to eventually lead a large group when given the opportunity since he has technical and conceptual skills.
In conclusion, l would have done exactly what Billy Beane did but will try and communicate more with coach Art Howe to trust me. It is the responsibility of every leader to communicate to others ontheir goal and vision. Every effective leader needs the combination of these three skills approach to lead in any organisation though in various degree. Leaders should have the ability to use one’s knowledge and competencies to accomplish a set of goals but first of all having a clear strategy and communicating the strategy to employees so that they will have sense of belonging which will translate to high performance, teamwork high morale boosting.