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Analysis of Leadership in Monster Inc

In Monsters, Inc., leaders reflect Path-Goal Theory: Sulley shifts from supportive to achievement-oriented, while Waternoose is directive—each showing strengths, flaws, and growth paths.

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    As a team, we discussed which theory was more relatable to the movie and the leaders in it. We chose Path-Goal Theory, this theory helps followers move along paths to achieve work and personal goals. There are four types of leadership in this theory, and they are Directive, Supportive, Achievement-Oriented, and Participative Leader. In the movie Monster Inc., the leader is James P. Sullivan. At the beginning of the movie, he is a Supportive and Achievement-Oriented leader. He is in a position of superiority in comparison with his coworkers, and, from that position, he is encouraging other monsters and complementing them to make the environment more friendly. On the other hand, he is trying all the time to scare as many kids as he can so the company can produce energy. We could say that his real weakness is being too compassionate because he starts having feelings for Boo and wants to take care of her. For that reason, problems started not only in the company but in the whole city. In addition, that also separated him from his best friend and assistant Mike Wazowski. Also, he is too complacent with Waternoose and that prohibited him from seeing what he was doing with Randal behind the scenes. Sullivan's strength is the capacity for adaptation after he and Wazowski discovered Waternoose's plans and sent him to prison, he finds another way to make the factory work again without scaring kids but making them laugh. The leader overcame his weaknesses by confronting reality and putting his fears aside. He takes care of the situation without having compassion for the bad people. Waternoose is another leader in the movie, he is an autocratic leader, he is only focus on get the kind scared to be productive and get as much energy as possible. He is also focused on maintaining the kids inside of their doors and not letting them out by any circumstances. From a perspective of Path-Goal theory we can say Waternoose is a Directive leader, he lets his employees know what is expected from them, he gives direction all the time, maintains standards. We can see this clearly when he is trying to train monsters to scare kids, he gives directions of how to do it. He tries to set standards close to Sullivan's performance. The strength of Waternoose is that he has the ability to act normally while he is taking actions that can be dangerous for everyone behind the scenes, this is no something good from a moral point of view, but is a strength that he has. One weakness is that he is to greedy, and that does not let him see that he can be discovered by anyone-

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