The Devil Wears Prada: Leadership and Management in the Film

Introduction

The movie “The Devil Wears Prada” is about a College graduate named Andrea Sachs and this character is played by the actress Anne Hathaway. She is looking for a job after her graduation and she eventually finds one at a fashion magazine named Runaway whose Editor In Chief is Miranda Priestley. Miranda Priestley follows transactional leadership in all its true essence. She demands the very best from her subordinates. Due to the lack of knowledge about the intricacies of the Fashion Industry, Andrea is not able to give her best initially. This leaves Priestly furious and she calls out Andrea for her poor quality of work. Her tight schedule through the day kept Andrea, her assistant , busy. This strictness regarding her schedule increased her effectiveness as a leader. The preciseness of Miranda about everything in the organization left no room for the employees to cause chaos and disrupt the order of the same. To analyze the movie “The Devil Wears Prada” in terms of leadership this essay will discuss the characters of the film and leadership qualities they possess.

Devil Wears Prada: leadership analysis

In this film, the following characters played the role of management/leadership. Starting with Miranda Priestley who is the Editor in Chief of Runway, who plays the role of a straight forward leader proving to have great leadership and gets the job done without the need to show who is in charge. Her calm tone of voice, gentle but yet effective body language, and facial expressions are enough to make a person aware that she is in charge. Andrea Sacks is a graduate that wants to become a journalist in New York but ends up getting an interview working for Miranda as her personal assistant. And although Andrea lacked experience and knowledge about the fashion industry, soon she proves to everyone with hard work and dedication you can accomplish anything. Lastly, we have Emily Charlton who was the junior assistant of Miranda at one point but got promoted to senior assistant, however it deteriorates when Andrea proves herself to everyone. Throughout the film, we can see how Emily takes charge when Miranda is absent as she is aware of how Miranda likes things to be done. We can’t forget about Nigel. He is Miranda’s right hand who gives advice to Andrea to not give up and prove to herself she can do the job.

Conflict and Confrontation

According to book Ukimer’s management skills “conflict arises from having different beliefs or ideas that is the presence of two or more diverging opinions on the same subject, whereas confrontation is defined as the act of bringing things together for comparison in order to achieve a resolution” (Robert W., 1990) Throughout the film, we can realize that the whole movie reflects aspects of conflict and confrontation between Miranda towards her employees as well as in her personal life trying to maintain a stable marriage. She is not a person you want to mess with and she does not apologize for her ruthless attitude either. She believes that everyone wants to live the life she lives, no questions asked. Her attitude towards her employees brings confrontation because she can’t keep an assistant for more than six months. As for Andrea, the conflict is with herself as she focused all her energy on work, struggling to learn how to balance what she wants in her personal life with what she is asked to do in her career by her over-demanding boss. She blames others because she thinks they don’t understand the sacrifice she is doing by working late for Miranda, taking that extra mile to please her, and ignores the fact that she missed her boyfriend’s birthday, never getting a chance to hang out with her friends anymore only because of her overstress job.

Relationship Between the Managers/Leaders and Subordinates

The relationship between managers/leaders and the lower rank employees is very disrespectful, lacking communication, no recognition, or motivation as there is always conflicts among them. It is said that true motivation is self-motivation. As the book states “managers cannot motivate but they can arrange the job and the work environment in ways to improve self-motivation and performance”. When we discuss the Devil wears Prada and motivation in the film, we can see that Miranda was never called out on how heartless she handled her staff, or how a high turnover with her team is affecting the business. But in the real world, managers should learn how to adjust to the changing times and to manage people based on best practices and what the company requires. Unfortunately, the relationship between managers/leaders with their employees in the film was the total opposite and very minimum. There are no boundaries between them when it comes to their time outside of work, managers didn’t give recognition to employees like Andrea putting extra time to get the job done, which made Andrea feel like she wasn’t achieving anything because she was concern she had to pleased Miranda. As the film keeps playing we can see how Miranda gives Andrea more responsibility by having her bring the book to her home but like always with very little connection but at the same time giving Andrea the connection she desires to have a good relationship with her demanding boss.

Some of the themes of this film are fashion, power, money, sacrifice, how far one can go before losing oneself altogether, relationships, and management to run smoothly hundreds of employees in order to be the most successful magazine in the fashion industry. Miranda who is the Editor in Chief of Runway shows that with power and money comes sacrifices as she is disconnected from her own family. With the power she has, she abuses her employees, having Andrea do her daughter’s school projects, making her get the last copy of the latest Harry Potter novel for her kids knowing that maybe it’s impossible to get. Andrea on the other hand gets so involved with work and her new life that she slowly starts to lose her old one, letting her relationship with Nate and friends suffer. Soon she realizes that she will have to change her simple look in order to gain acceptance from her ruthless boss and colleagues, especially Emily.

The ideal leadership style for a team is based on the perception that personal power is having and exercising power with people, not over people. Some of the characteristics I would consider is the whole idea of Miranda’s management because she thrives to do better at what she does regardless of what others think of her, with the exception that she doesn’t respect her employees or is consider of them. No wonder her assistants never last longer than a few months because of her high expectations. Miranda’s driving for perfection, dedication, organization, and leadership has made the magazine Runway very successful and without saying anything her employees know what she expects from each one of them.

Throughout the film we can find basic management functions, which are planning, organizing, coordinating, and controlling. Planning for example is the projection of actions intended to reach specific goals. We can see Miranda has consistent habits and ways of how she wants things done. Organizing is the establishment of the structure in which the work gets done. A good example of this is how Miranda takes the “book” home to review it then puts notes for the others to get organize and see what needs to be done. Coordinating is another function. It’s the process of managing activities and participants so that they function smoothly with each other. When Miranda travels to Paris for work, she coordinates with Nigel and Andrea to make sure everything goes smoothly as she planned. Lastly, we have control as part of basic management. It refers to the environment in which all supervisors work is in a constant state of change. Miranda having such a busy schedule is very important for the staff to have the proper tools to get their job done and for her assistants to be on top of everything.

In the workplace, you will work with people that won't always live up to your expectations and might have to pick up the slack. In the film, Andrea shows that she not only can deliver good work but she goes above and beyond even when her coworkers don’t support her or motivate her. Nigel whose been working in the fashion industry for over 15 years helps and is Miranda’s right hand. He gives Andrea a little pep talk to boost up her attitude towards Miranda and her job at Runway. With harsh words, he reminds her not to forget that she is working at a place that published some of the greatest artists of the century and millions of girls would die to work for. On the other hand, throughout the film we see that there is no teamwork because everyone is so concern to do good only to impress Miranda, there are unrealistic expectations, as they also lack organizational support.

Reflection

I enjoy watching the movie because it is a motivational movie and at the same time funny and entertaining. Andrea starts her job at Runway as a recent graduate interested in journalism, not in fashion. However, soon she realizes she has to take more of an interest in fashion in order to fit in with the others. She gets help from her colleague Nigel and starts wearing some really stylish outfits. Emily, on the other hand, idolizes Runway and worships fashion. The film shows to not be a quitter to always give your best even if it is something not of your interest because it can teach you many lessons and open doors to greater opportunities. The film opened me up to the world of fashion and the jobs within the fashion industry. Also in the Devil wears Prada there a lot of management lessons.

The least I like about the movie was the disrespect between Miranda, coworkers, and Andrea. To Miranda unfortunately everyone is replaceable and for that part, she doesn’t show much appreciation for the people surrounding her. It is crazy to say that this actually happens in real life. Sometimes the people we work for don’t appreciate the work we do and we are taken for granted.

Conclusion

In conclusion as business enterprises of all kinds become more complex, they depend more on the effectiveness of group efforts and cross-functional activities rather than working individually. It is important to work as a team to have great results. Therefore, sometimes as an individual we must make sacrifices in order to achieve our goal. This film is a vivid sample to not overuse your power of a manager or supervisor against employees because it makes the workplace hard for everyone to the point where employees will not perform their job well and will end up quitting. At the end of the day we spend more time with our coworkers than we do with our relatives so it’s important to know our employees, show respect, gratitude, morality, and appreciation.

References

1. Keye Productivity Center. (1991). How to Build a Better Work Team (2nd ed.). Kansas City, MO: Keye Productivity Center.
2. Lewan, L. L. (1990). Diversity in the workplace. HR Magazine, 35(6), 42.
3. Maslow, A. H. (1954). Motivation and Personality. New York: Harper & Row.
4. Roberts, W. (1990). Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun. New York: Warner Books.