Introduction
Director Zheng Dasheng’s and Yang Jin’s compelling biographical film, “I Am a Mountain,” tells of Zhang Guimei, a dedicated teacher who has led the way in advancing women’s education in rural China. Hai Qing stars. The film was released on November 24th and tells the story of Zhang’s life-long insistence on creating the Huaping Girls ‘Senior High School in Yunnan, which provides few educational opportunities for girls. Zhang’s leadership is displayed as robust and transformational, guiding her pupils through financial tightness, social conventions, and individual crises. This essay will examine some of the principal leadership themes and approaches in the movie, relate them to the problems and challenges confronting education personnel today, and identify how values and beliefs are connected to leadership practices. Also, a literature review will be done to develop a theoretical structure, and an assessment of leadership styles will be completed. Lastly, the essay will look at the exportation of leadership concepts to China from the perspective of Chinese social-cultural trends. Through this study, we hope to discover the wider significance of holding educational leadership, particularly in a cross-cultural setting.
Leadership Issue and Practice
In the film “I Am a Mountain,” Hai Qing commands the screen as Zhang Guimei, who has just accepted the mission to set up the mountain-top Huaping Girls ‘Senior High School in Yunnan at the behest of the Yunnan Education Bureau. Taking this step makes leadership a focal issue, and its decision reflects Zhang’s farsighted leadership style and her concern for the girls in the area faced with a shortage of decent educational opportunities. The leadership question with Zhang concerns the recognition of a systemic educational rift for the mountains ‘girls. In the pivotal scene, she is trying to come to terms with this reality. Finally, when she does, she boldly creates a solution instead of accepting the status quo. These incidents, with their contradictions and conflicts, add to the richness of Zhang’s lead role portrayal.
Zhang’s firm sense that education can change destinies is an important thread that runs through the movie. Meanwhile, scenes demonstrating the benefits of education for her students show that Zhang truly believes this. In the movie, Zhang’s girls are captured on film at these moments of… Zhang’s leadership is about setting up a school and having education become a force for personal and social change.
III. Literature Review
A biographical film, I Am a Mountain, tells a powerful story, an excellent foil for exploring links between leadership styles and between Zhang Guimei’s own and those used in education. In order to analyze and understand the leadership philosophy depicted in the movie, we must use a theoretical model.
Transformational leadership is one of the prominent theoretical frameworks that corresponds to Zhang Guimei’s leadership. This is the theory sketched by Krinsky Hickson (2014), who cites the leaders who inspire and motivate people to achieve great things. Zhang Guimei’s decision to set up the Huaping Girls ‘Senior High School coincides with the values of servant leadership. The way she sets out to meet the educational needs of the girls in the mountain areas reveals a servant’s heart–the leader’s willingness to put the community’s interests first. Ultimately, the film shows Zhang’s concern for her students’ well-being. The servant-leader attributes she exhibits include scenes in which she faces personal difficulties, surmounts difficulties, and provides emotional support to her students—the servant-leadership framework by deepening the meaning of the leadership practices of Zhang.
Adaptive leadership is also relevant to Zhang Guimei’s I Am a Mountain story. Adaptive leadership centers around motivating people to overcome complex tasks and be successful under changing conditions (Jerusalem & Hudtohan, 2022). This is a key element of Zhang’s adaptive leadership in dealing with financial constraints, cultural norms, and bureaucratic obstacles. Her leadership style may change in response to different challenges, which is conducive to her educational endeavor. The film offers a sense of Zhang’s way of strategically thinking, solving problems, and mobilizing resources to meet her adaptive challenges. Scenes of her adapting her style to different situations or problems give a picture of adaptive leadership. This framework expands the analysis of Zhang’s leadership, showing how adaptive strategies are required in complex and changing environments.
Last, the path-goal theory of leadership developed by Robert J. House is aimed at how a leader can help a follower achieve his goal by clarifying the path to success and providing support where needed (Handayanti & Januarty, 2023). The path-goal theory is particularly reflected in Zhang Guimei’s ways of leading her students. Scenes of Zhang giving the team direction, support, and guidance in words fall squarely within the core principles of the path-goal theory. Secondly, the film demonstrates Zhang’s focus on providing a nurturing learning environment, reducing barriers, and giving her students the tools to succeed. It coheres with the path-goal theory’s stress on the leader’s function as one who helps followers accomplish their goals through proper direction and encouragement¹³.
Evaluation of Leadership Practices
The leadership practices depicted by Zhang Guimei in I Am a Mountain are complex and detailed, revealing a hybrid of transformative, servant, adaptive, and path-goal leadership styles. The foundation of Zhang’s leadership practice is her decision to found the Huaping Girls ‘Senior High School. This decision is consistent with the idealized influence component of transformative leadership, where leaders motivate others through their vision and dedication. In addition, the path-goal theory offers insight into how Zhang guides her students to educational success. The theory suggests that leaders will clarify the course to success and provide support (Handayanti & Januarty, 2023). This approach is represented in Zhang’s guidance, as in scenes where she provides direction, support, and encouragement. Her leadership style leaves her students with a clear path through the obstacles they face in pursuing their education. Although Zhang’s leadership methods work with full force, one must still recognize the conflict and contradictions reflected in the movie. These moments enrich the assessment as they question the effectiveness of certain kinds of leadership practice. For example, scenes showing community opposition and skepticism reveal the limited force of Zhang’s forceful persuasion and the need for a flexible response to resistance.
Cultural Transfer of Leadership
Then, by studying the cultural transplantation of Zhang Guimei’s leadership methods in I Am a Mountain, they take an imaginary trip, imagining what would happen if her transformative, servant, adoptive, and path-goal leadership styles were transplanted into China. Alternatively, it is China’s higher education or K-12 school systems. However, when transplanted into the local Chinese culture, Zhang Guimei’s visionary decision to establish the Huapping Girls ‘Senior High School presents an interesting case. Chinese have strong communal values, so Zhang’s focus on educating girls fits in with cultural norms (Dong et al., 2023). Within the Chinese cultural context, education has never been anything other than a stepping-stone to society and a way of giving back.
The concept of servant leadership, which strives to serve others and increase the well-being of followers, naturally fits with China’s cultural milieu. This notion that a leader is a servant of the greater good fits the Confucian values of humility and selflessness and the greater social harmony known as li (Li et al., 2019). Zhang’s concerns for the community and her holistic support of the pupils would be warmly received in a Chinese cultural tradition that appreciates leaders who prioritize the common good. Also, adapting Zhang’s adaptive leadership approach to the Chinese educational system requires traversing bureaucratic structures, societal conventions, and financial limitations unique to the local setting (Root, 2023). The adaptive approach, which stresses the leader’s flexibility in coping with the difficulties that arise, is consistent with the pragmatic and hardy temperament of the Chinese. This ability to change tactics, deal with complexity, and develop creative solutions fits well with Chinese leadership’s emphasis on adaptability.
Additionally, if applied to the Chinese educational scene, the path-goal theory must take note of cultural expectations and aspirations. However, it is a process that takes time and effort. However, these values, which define Chinese culture, also presume a certain level of hierarchy and authority, which differs from the collaborative and participative nature of the transformative and adaptive leadership styles. The need for clear direction and the desire for collective decision-making become two sides of the same coin. The communication style that Zhang uses in persuading others is well suited to the movie’s depiction of the local situation. However, it might not work in a Chinese cultural context, where indirectness is the norm.
Conclusions
Finally, I Am a Mountain presents a fascinating picture of Zhang Guimei’s inspiring leadership in helping girls in rural China overcome the education gap. From a theoretical perspective including transformational, servant, adaptive, and path-goal leadership, this paper has looked at Zhang’s pioneering decision to found the Huaping Girls ‘Senior High School, her various modes of leadership, and the cultural transmission of these methods in the Chinese setting. Zhang’s firm determination, flexibility, and the power of education to remodel have helped reveal the twists and turns of leading society through difficult times. However, besides testimony to the role played by visionary leaders in education, the film also provides an occasion to think about the cultural underpinnings shaping leadership attitudes and practices in different international settings.
References
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