MGT 530 Module 5 Leading Teams Example

Who Leads When the Camera Rolls? Team Leadership Functions on a Thirty-Four-Day Film Shoot

Student Name

Master of Business Administration, Aspen University

MGT 530: Leadership Theory and Practice

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Who Leads When the Camera Rolls? Team Leadership Functions on a Thirty-Four-Day Film Shoot

Peachtree Lantern Pictures, a composite independent film company in Atlanta, Georgia, will shoot a $4.2 million feature over 34 days this fall. The producer leads a team of eleven department heads: the director of photography, gaffer, key grip, production designer, costume designer, makeup head, sound mixer, location manager, first assistant director, script supervisor and post-production supervisor. Each is an expert who runs a crew of their own. On the company's last film, the shoot ran six days over budget. A post-mortem found that departments made decisions without telling each other: the art department built a set for a scene the director had cut, and lighting and camera disagreed daily about setups. The producer wants to lead this team better.

Leadership as Functions

Morgeson et al. (2010) proposed that team leadership is best understood as meeting the team's critical needs, whoever does it. Teams cycle through transition phases, when they plan and organize, and action phases, when they do the work. In transition, leadership functions include composing the team, defining the mission, setting goals, structuring and planning, training and making sense of events. In action, they include monitoring, managing boundaries with outsiders, challenging the team, performing team tasks, solving problems, providing resources, encouraging self-management and supporting the social climate. These functions can come from formal or informal sources, inside or outside the team.

Sharing Leadership

Wang et al. (2014) combined studies of shared leadership, where leadership is distributed among team members rather than held by one person, and found it positively related to team effectiveness. The relationship was stronger when the team's work was more complex. A film shoot is highly complex and interdependent, and department heads hold expertise the producer lacks, which makes shared leadership particularly suitable.

Coaching at the Right Time

Hackman and Wageman (2005) argued that team coaching is most effective when its type matches the team's stage. Motivational coaching, building commitment and effort, helps most at the beginning. Consultative coaching, helping the team review and adjust its approach, helps most at the midpoint, when teams are naturally open to reconsidering strategy. Educational coaching, building knowledge and skill, helps most at the end, when the team can reflect on what it learned.

Leadership Functions and Who Performs Them

What Went Wrong Last Time

Interviews with the department heads from the last film showed the pattern behind the overrun. Each knew their own work superbly, and each assumed someone else was coordinating across departments. The producer, busy with financiers, believed the first assistant director was doing it; the first assistant director believed it was the director's job. No one owned the functions Morgeson, DeRue and Karam call structuring and planning and managing boundaries between departments. The result was not conflict so much as gaps: decisions that fell between departments because no one saw them as theirs.

The Producer's Own Role

The functional approach clarifies what the producer should not do as well as what she should. She should not direct lighting or costumes; department heads lead their crews. Her role is to make sure that every critical function has an owner, to manage the boundary with financiers and locations and to watch the overall schedule and budget, intervening when the team cannot solve a problem itself.

A Plan Timed to the Shoot

Before the shoot, the producer will hold a two-day workshop where department heads walk through the script together, agree on the schedule and identify decisions that affect more than one department. This is motivational coaching at the start. Every evening during the shoot, department heads will meet for fifteen minutes to review tomorrow's scenes and flag changes. On day 17, the midpoint, the producer will lead a half-day review of what is working and what to change, consultative coaching when the team is most open. After wrap, the team will hold a review to capture lessons, educational coaching for the next production.

Why Experts Need Coordination More Than Direction

Department heads on a film are among the most skilled people in their crafts, and none needs the producer to tell them how to light a scene or dress a set. Their work, however, is deeply interdependent: a lighting change alters what the camera sees, a costume color affects how the set reads on screen. Expertise reduces the need for direction, but interdependence raises the need for coordination, which is why the functions table assigns coordination roles explicitly.

When Conflict Arises

Shared leadership does not remove disagreement. Camera and lighting will still differ on setups, and the director's late changes will still ripple through departments. The evening meeting gives these conflicts a place to surface before the next day. When department heads cannot agree, the first assistant director will decide on scheduling questions and the director on creative ones, with the producer stepping in only on budget. Clear decision rights keep shared leadership from turning into endless debate on set.

Building Trust Before Day One

Several department heads have never worked together. The prep workshop will include a walk through each location as a group, so heads see each other's challenges firsthand, and a shared dinner the night before the first shooting day.

Measures

The production will track days over schedule, cost against budget, rework such as sets built and not used, and a short survey of department heads on coordination.

Lessons for the Next Production

After wrap, the team's review will record which functions worked, which owners were overloaded and what the evening meetings caught. The producer will keep the functions table as a template for future productions, adjusting it for teams of different sizes and budgets.

Conclusion

Morgeson, DeRue and Karam's functions show that leading a film's department heads means ensuring every critical need is met, not doing everything personally. Wang, Waldman and Zhang's evidence supports sharing leadership on complex work, and Hackman and Wageman's timing tells the producer when coaching will help most.

References

Hackman, J. R., & Wageman, R. (2005). A theory of team coaching. Academy of Management Review, 30(2), 269-287. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2005.16387885

Morgeson, F. P., DeRue, D. S., & Karam, E. P. (2010). Leadership in teams: A functional approach to understanding leadership structures and processes. Journal of Management, 36(1), 5-39. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206309347376

Wang, D., Waldman, D. A., & Zhang, Z. (2014). A meta-analysis of shared leadership and team effectiveness. Journal of Applied Psychology, 99(2), 181-198. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0034531