Human Resource Questions

1) Do you think this speech effectively motivates people? Why or why not?

- I personally think this speech might motivate some people, but not everyone. My reason my saying this is because this speech is about defending one's country. But to me the speech is a mind game. Basically, if you don’t go to war, this general thinks you’re a nobody. Not a proud American. Not all American love war/fighting. He plays on words with how their family would feel, and others as well. And with that most people would do anything to make their family proud. He plays around talking about the importance of teams and how much of a winner/heroes they will be seen as. In this line of duty, teamwork is very important. He does acknowledge their fears but at the same time he’s tearing them down for actually having fears. From personal experience, fear can/will cripple your way of thinking when it's thrown in your face, not everyone can think on their feet to have a better outcome.

2) Can this speech teach us anything about human resource management?

- This speech teaches us about human resource management in the sense that it lacks what should be summarized as humanity. The speech really lacked empathy, and the general seems like he will be unapproachable by what should become his followers if he’s a good leader. However, from what I’ve read he doesn’t seem to be what a good leader should be. Leadership is the ability to influence a group toward the achievement of a vision or set of goals. Although a leadership appears in many forms, we sometimes confuse the ability to lead with the opportunity to lead. We also tend to believe that leadership is intuitive and innate with each individual.

I was reading this article I found on Harvard Business Review website, “What Makes a Leader”