Name: XXXXX BU5584 – The Leadership Challenge

Student ID: XXXXX

Leadership Analysis of a Movie

(Word Count: 1897)

The movie I have chosen for this assessment is ‘M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story’ released in
2016. This is a biopic of former Indian cricket team captain (2007 - 2016) Mr. Mahendra Singh
Dhoni often referred as ‘Dhoni’. This movie depicts the amazing journey of Dhoni as a
schoolboy who started his life from a very humble family background and went on to become
the most successful captain of Indian cricket.

The Movie Story:

The movie begins at a hospital in Ranchi (India) where Dhoni is born. His father works as a
pump operator of a school playground. The family has very limited means of income and live
in a humble dwelling. Dhoni’s father is uneducated and is determined to give his children good
education. However, Dhoni from a very young age, is fond of sports and is a goalkeeper in the
school’s football team. The school cricket team coach is impressed by his agility and
persuades him to play as a wicketkeeper in the school cricket team. Dhoni overcomes his
initial reluctance and starts practicing cricket after school hours. During practice, not only does
he prove himself to be an excellent wicket keeper but also displays his tremendous batting
abilities. Thus, starts his amazing journey of cricket from the school playground.

Despite his father’s strong opposition of persuading a career in sports, Dhoni dedicates
significant time for cricket, thankfully due the co-operation of his mother and sister. Dhoni
faces numerous challenges to get selected into the Indian cricket team. Though talented, he
is unable to get himself noticed due to lack of funding and sponsorship. Due to his father’s
insistence he takes up a job of ticket collector with the ‘Indian Railways’. He joins the railway’s
cricket team to pursue his passion. He excels in domestic cricket but is inundated with
numerous difficulties to further his cricketing career. Working in the railways for about 3 years,
Dhoni manages to surmount all the problems with fierce determination and hard work and
eventually manages to get selected in the Indian cricket team.

Tremendously talented Dhoni soon moves up the ranks in Indian cricket team and becomes
team captain in 2007. When he takes up the captaincy of Indian team, the team is in a
complete disarray. Many players are out of form and the team morale is down. There is
favouritism and politics prevalent within the Cricket Board. Dhoni analyses all the issues from
grass-root level in an objective manner and turns around the Indian team to be best in the
world that manages to win the T20 world cup (2007) and the one-day international world cup
(2011).

1
Name: XXXXX BU5584 – The Leadership Challenge
Student ID: XXXXX

Leadership Qualities of M.S. Dhoni:

Self-Confidence:

During an inter-school final match against a tough team, Dhoni requests his coach and his co-
players to let him bat first and open the innings. He goes in to bat before the regular openers
and achieves a big score resulting in winning the match. This shows Dhoni’s self-confidence
– a quintessential trait of leadership (Dao, F., 2018).

Focus and Determination:

Dhoni was determined to pursue cricket while studying. When his exams clashed with an inter-
school match schedule, he attends the exams and writes enough to pass the subject and
leaves the examination hall early to play the match. This demonstrates the important traits of
leadership of having Focus (Patel, D., 2017) and Determination (Johnson, J, R., 1999) to
achieve goals.

Courage :

Whilst working as a ticket collector Dhoni finds it difficult to juggle between his job and cricket
stagnating his cricketing career. He gets depressed and faces a bad patch in cricket. But he
considers this bad situation as an opportunity and decides to go back to basics to improve
his cricketing skills. He takes a step down and starts to play tennis ball tournaments with the
local teams. This helps him regain his confidence and he secures a place in the Indian team.
When Dhoni’s career hit a low point, he had the courage to take a step back and start again.
Such courage is an important trait of being a leader (Tracy B., 2014)

Self-development:

Dhoni observes a local player use an unconventional technique of hitting a Yorker ball (a
difficult ball) and this kindles his curiosity. He befriends the player and learns the technique to
better his own game. Not only does he learn the technique, but perfects it and uses it
successfully in international cricket. Effective leaders pay attention to self-development
(Richard, L., 2016) and Dhoni clearly demonstrates this trait.

Bold decisions:

Effective leadership is committed to acknowledging brutal facts (Keis,K., 2014). Three years
before world cup 2011, Dhoni takes a bold decision to replace three senior players with

2
Name: XXXXX BU5584 – The Leadership Challenge
Student ID: XXXXX

younger talents as they were not effective fielders. Dhoni’s decision causes a chaos in Indian
cricket team, Cricket Board and the media. The Cricket Board tries to pressurize Dhoni against
his decision, but he does not budge.

Leaders will be criticised for blazing a new trail, but leaders know where they are going and
what they stand for. Leadership is not about being popular but being committed to principles
and vision – no matter what (Keis,K., 2014). Dhoni was severely criticised by the media for his
decision. This negative publicity tarnished his public image. However, Dhoni demonstrates his
boldness by remaining committed to his decision.

Visionary:

“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision” – Helen Keller.

Vision is an important trait of being a leader (Wanasika & Krahnke, 2017). Dhoni’s bold
decision of removing three established players from the team is reluctantly accepted by the
Cricket Board. This decision was a huge risk but turns out to be the best decision for the team.
Dhoni took this tough decision three years prior to the world cup 2011 and groomed the team
well to win the world cup (2011), proving vision to be a great tool of leadership (Irving, J.,
2014).

Leading from the front:

During the final match in world cup 2011, India is in a critical position. Accessing the
circumstances, Dhoni promotes himself up in batting order to takes the responsibility upon
himself to handle the pressure. This shows an important aspect of leadership of leading from
the front (Cummuta, T., 2013) .

Inspiring people:

To experience inspiration, people also need to feel included. For real inclusion, people need
to feel intimately connected to the actions and process that are leading to the accomplishment
of the goals or the final decision (Heathfield,S. 2019). Dhoni fetches victory by hitting the final
ball for 6 runs and India wins the world cup 2011 after 28 years under his captaincy. The entire
team is ecstatic and celebrating that moment, but Dhoni walks calmly behind the team. He
does not come forward to hog the credit or the media limelight for winning but lets the team
enjoy the success. This inspirational behaviour has helped him inspire loyalty within the team.

3
Name: XXXXX BU5584 – The Leadership Challenge
Student ID: XXXXX

Delivering Results:

Leadership is about more than individual, phycological competencies – it is also about

delivering results (Ulrich & Smallwood, ) . I consider Dhoni to be an effective leader not just
because he had the leadership attributes, but he was successful in delivering the results.
Under Dhoni’s captaincy the Indian team manged to win the T20 and one-day world cup and
emerged to be the best team in the cricketing world.

Leadership Theories:

Various leadership styles are depicted by Dhoni and other supporting characters in this movie.
Amongst several leadership theories, the Transformational Leadership Theory and the
Authentic Leadership Theory helped me understand these leadership characteristics.

Transformational Leadership Theory:

Transformational leaders are charismatic leaders who are persistent, determined and are
willing to take risks. They are trusted to do the right thing and they demonstrate high standards
of ethical and moral conduct (Schedlitzki & Edwards, 2018).

The above characteristics resonate very well with Dhoni’s leadership style. While working as
a ticket collector with the Indian Railways, Dhoni’s cricketing career remained stagnated. He
tried for over 3 years to get selected in the Indian team but in vain. However, he remained
persistent in practicing cricket and determined to achieve his goal of joining the Indian cricket
team. When reigning as the captain of Indian team Dhoni took a bold decision of removing
three senior players from the team just before the world cup. This could have been a risky
move, but he was willing to take risks and believed it would be in the best interest of the team.
He did not budge from his decision even after being pressurized by the Board of Indian Cricket
because he knew his decision was based on a rational thought. This shows his high ethical
and moral values.

Another foundation of transformational leadership is inspirational motivation (Bass & Avolio,

1994). This type of leader always motivates and inspires their followers. They display
enthusiasm, optimism and help lifting team spirit. They demonstrate commitment to goals and
the shared vision (Schedlitzki & Edwards, 2018). These characteristics were very well
displayed by A.K. Ganguly - Dhoni’s boss and mentor in the Indian Railways. Ganguly himself
was a cricket enthusiast; hence he encouraged Dhoni to join the railway’s cricket team.
Ganguly also reduced Dhoni’s working hours and this enabled Dhoni to concentrate on cricket.
Dhoni desperately tried to make it to the Indian team for over 3 years but was unsuccessful.

4
Name: XXXXX BU5584 – The Leadership Challenge
Student ID: XXXXX

There came a stage when Dhoni was completely depressed and confused about his future.
Ganguly inspired and motivated him to treat these challenges as opportunities to improve
himself. He encouraged Dhoni to play tennis ball tournaments in the local league matches.
This thought filled Dhoni’s mind with optimism and he got a direction to move forward,
eventually making it to the Indian team.

Authentic Leadership Theory:

Authentic leaders have the following characteristics (George, 2003) (George & Sims, 2007):

• Understand their purpose

• Strong values about the right thing to do
• Establishing trusting relationships with others
• Demonstrate self-discipline and act on their values
• Passionate about their mission

Dhoni’s leadership style also fits well within the framework of authentic leadership theory.
Dhoni faced immense difficulties in his path of becoming an international cricketer. However,
he remained focussed and successfully achieved the goal. His decision of removing three
senior players from the team prior to the world cup despite the opposition from the Indian
Cricket Board demonstrates his strong values of doing the right thing. Dhoni always strove
towards self-improvement. He was able to analyse any weak points from the lost matches and
build up on those failures. He did not blame any losses on others but took it upon himself to
improve the team. Due to these qualities, his team-mates were able to trust him as leader.
Dhoni managed to build a team that was willing to perform for him, not due to authority but
due to respect and admiration.

Conclusion:

Dhoni not only proved himself to be one of the most successful captains, but also emerged as
a strong and influential leader who managed to change the face of Indian cricket in the
international arena. He possessed many intrinsic traits like confidence, focus, determination,
self-discipline and vision. His leadership style is a mix of transformational and authentic
leadership. He inspired his team-mates by leading from the front and this helped him to foster
loyalty. It was under Dhoni’s guidance and leadership that the Indian cricket team underwent
a complete transformation and emerged as the top team in the world.

5
Name: XXXXX BU5584 – The Leadership Challenge
Student ID: XXXXX

References

Bass, B., & Avolio, B. (1994). Introduction. Improving organisational effectiveness through
transformational leadership (pp. 3). Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications.

Cummuta, T. (2013). Leading the way or leadership from behind? Retrieved February/9,
2019, from https://aboutleaders.com/leading-the-way-or-leadership-from-
behind/#gs.OZDYEixG

Dao, F. (2018). Without confidence, there is no leadership. Retrieved February 6, 2019, from
https://www.inc.com/resources/leadership/articles/20080301/dao.html

George, B. (2003). Authentic leadership: Rediscovering the secrets to creating lasting value.
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

George, B., & Sims, P. (2007). True north: Discover your authentic leadership. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Heathfield,S. 2019. What Makes a Leader Inspirational to People? [online] Available from:
https://www.thebalancecareers.com/leadership-inspiration-1918611 [Accessed 06
Feb.2019]

Irving, J. (2014). Leading from the front … leading with vision. Retrieved February/6, 2019,
from https://purposeinleadership.com/2014/08/07/leading-from-the-front/

Johnson, J. R. (1999) ‘Leadership and Self-Determination’, Focus on Autism and Other

Developmental Disabilities, 14(1), pp. 4–16. doi: 10.1177/108835769901400102.

KEIS, K., 2014. Leadership is Not for Wimps: Effective leadership is acknowledging the
brutal facts. Leadership Excellence Essentials, 31(6), pp. 32.

Patel, D. (2017). 11 powerful traits of successful leaders. Retrieved February/7, 2019, from
https://www.forbes.com/sites/deeppatel/2017/03/22/11-powerful-traits-of-successful-
leaders/#16fdeeca469f

6
Name: XXXXX BU5584 – The Leadership Challenge
Student ID: XXXXX

Richard, L. (2016). Toward better leadership: Self-development, focusing on strengths &

accepting flaws. Retrieved February/08, 2019, from
https://www.lawyerbrainblog.com/2016/05/toward-better-leadership/

Schedlitzki, D., & Edwards, G. (2018). Studying leadership traditional and critical approaches
(second ed.). Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore, Washington DC, Melbourne:
Sage.

Tracy, B. (2014) Leadership. Saranac Lake: AMACOM. Available at

http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/abdn/detail.action?docID=1390902 [Accessed 6th
January 2019]

ULRICH, D. and SMALLWOOD, N., 2009. Leadership Insights. Leadership

Excellence, 26(12), pp. 5.

Wanasika, I., & Krahnke, K. (2017). Leadership and vision. In J. Marques, & S. Dhiman (Eds.),
Leadership today (pp. 75) Springer, Cham.