The tower heist - an adventure comedy with motives based on concepts of people-oriented leadership, team dynamics, communication theories, and pygmalion effect

The paper ” An Adventure Comedy The Tower Heist” is a perfect example of a movie review on visual arts and film studies. The Tower Heist is an adventure comedy film that is replete with the application of organizational behavior concepts. The main character is a Josh Kovacs (Ben Stiller), a manager for a residential apartment in a high-rise New York building. As a manager with subordinates, the film exemplified the effective application of leadership concepts on leadership style (people-oriented leadership), team dynamics, and communication theories. Leadership style, specifically the people-oriented, or democratic leadership style was effectively manifested by Josh Kovacs, the manager at the residential high-rise building. He was observed to be well-loved by his subordinates due to his innate ability to take into account the interests of his employees. He was also viewed to manifest traits and characteristics that effectively describe exemplifying the people-oriented style: the creation of a pleasant work environment, showing interest in his staff, acknowledging and complementing people for work well done, and addressing the needs and demands of his personnel (McShane and Von Glinow). As such, he was effective in influencing the team which he formed in order to achieve the explicitly defined goal of avenging the loss of the pension fund of his employees, which were suspected to be stolen by Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda). In addition, he was willing to sacrifice his freedom to serve time in prison just to ensure that his personnel receives the money that has been entrusted to his jurisdiction.
Team dynamics concepts, specifically the team effectiveness model focusing on high-performance norms and high efficacy, were applied by Kovacs when he formed the team to locate the stolen pension fund of his personnel. It could be deduced that Kovacs formed an action team or a task force through team design, composed of members who are highly skilled and capable to achieve the identified goal. From the film, it was also proven that through team processes, the formation of the team was crucial in achieving the objective of locating the stolen pension money. The advantages of forming a team composed of diversely skilled people whose individual contributions are crucial for the goal was evident in terms of the collaboration of skills and abilities that are needed to undertake the defined tasks. These are applications of concepts on team effectiveness (high-performance norms and high efficacy in outcome). For instance, it was necessary to hire Odessa (Gabourey Sidibe), the daughter of a locksmith, for her expertise in cracking the safe. Likewise, the film also showed challenges encountered by the team, as a whole, and those encountered by individual members in compliance with the delegated tasks. For one, the problem encountered with Slide (Eddie Murphy), a notorious thief, providing conflicts which required urgent remedial action.
Communication theories, specifically the model of communication (sender to receiver), communication channels and modes, and the Pygmalion effect, are relevant and crucial in organizational settings. In the film, the application of effective modes of communication (face-to-face, meetings) spelled the difference between success and failure in their intended endeavor. During the team formation stage, Kovacs had to discern application of the appropriate communication pattern to maintain confidentiality and privacy of the intended plan. The importance of group meetings, training, as well as conformity to plans and schedules were emphasized in various scenarios and settings. Likewise, through strategies in communication (official advise from organizations), the group was able to steer the suspected perpetrator of a crime, away from the venue where they intended to locate the stolen pension fund to be returned to the rightful owners. In addition, through the concept of Pygmalion effect, the expectation of Kovacs that the team would be able to achieve their identified goal through their expertise and collaborative effort enabled them to eventually succeed.