“Lean on Me” is a biographical-drama movie released at 1989 and directed by John G. Avildsen. The film stars Morgan Freeman as Joe Clark, real life high school principal in Paterson, New Jersey. “Lean on me” is based on a true story of a man, who has faced a challenge and turned a drug and crime diseased school, with students failing to pass even a minimum basic skills test, into a neat, successfully performing educational establishment, with staff members being devoted to their task and aware of their social responsibility.

1. Joe Clark initially shows himself to be a fine organizer, whose leadership style can be best described by Authority-compliance management. Clark is a self-assured, forceful, strong willed principal, perfectly confident of the rightness of personal decisions. Sometimes he demonstrates aggressive, overemotional behavior, with his energy being directed at sweeping away everything and everyone standing in his way. The scene when he fires the school music teacher illustrates how he fails to show enough respect and concern for people when pursuing the objectives of effectiveness as he sees it. He tends to get rid of people whose behavior he views as harmful to the common good. Those who disobey him are considered saboteurs, and he happens to fail to distinguish between people who are truly harmful and those who are merely more independent and less compliant then others. As the movie approaches the end, his leadership style takes on the features of team management, Clark and his staff members being sincerely committed to each other and common goal.

2. Poor performance in Eastside High is primarily caused by the lack of motivation and unfavorable environment. We can observe how teachers’ efforts and attempts to influence the situation are all in vain. The conditions they have to deal with are frankly terrible. As the result, they lack enthusiasm and inspiration. One of the first scenes in the movie when we observe the school corridors filled with the violent, aggressive, uncontrollable teenagers, and the teachers, driven into a corner, unable to deal with this utter chaos, illustrates vividly both the hostile environment and lack of incentive. The atmosphere at school is frustrating, the set goals and expectations concerning students’ performance can hardly be reached. The working environment lacks policies and regulations badly.

3. Joe Clark is a brilliant teacher. His mere choice of profession is quite instructive, – this man is definitely aimed at helping people. He comes to Eastside high full of energy and enthusiasm to turn the whole school around. His willingness to help other shows when he deals with students’ personal issues. For instance, such is the case with Kaneesha Carter, whom he helps to deal with her unemployed mother, and later on, with an unplanned pregnancy. He is driven by the mission to save the school and to bring prosperity to its students, and he invest all his skillfulness and knowledge to reach the goal.

I believe Clark was also motivated by desire to deliver a good service. His objective number one is to make those school teachers educate effectively and those students learn successfully. In no way can he allow himself to be in charge of a school students of which are considered to be inferior.  In his first speech as a school principle he declares: “This is an institution of learning. If you can’t control it, how can you teach?” and goes on concluding “You’ve tried it your way for years. Your students can’t pass a minimum basic skills test. That means they can hardly read! They’ve given me less than one year, one school year to turn this place around, to get those test scores up so the state will not take us over to perform the task which you have failed to do – to educate our children!” (Lean on me). I also discern some indications of need for appreciation in his behavior, which is quite natural and satisfying, – he does not want his efforts to be taken for granted, and nobody would.

4. To some extent, Strategic Benefit Planning is practiced in Eastside High. The school staff members have a specified objective of making students pass a minimum basic skills test in order to prevent the school from being taken over by the state.  However, I am not quite sure whether this case can be considered as an example of employee benefit program. Therefore, I did not observe any specific types of employee benefits in the movie.