SUPERBAD and Incompetence

I chose to present a clip from the film SUPERBAD. This clip clearly illustrates a supreme example of incompetent leadership. In this film, to say these police officers perform poorly on their jobs is an understatement. They are just utterly clueless and seem to do everything wrong. In this clip, the police officers do not have the faintest idea of how to properly be a cop. They abuse their power, lack expertise, and the ability to focus. As enforcers of the law, they themselves openly commit offenses. They lie, destroy property, drink and drive, allow someone to utilize their firearms as toys, and even go as far as forcing the bystander, McLovin, to lie in the name of the law in order to save themselves. It is almost unreal how clearly these two men emphasize the characteristics of incompetence.

In the article describing incompetent leadership, it is stated that incompetent leaders can be incompetent in many different ways: “miscalculation to mismanagement, from silliness to stupidity, [and] from careless to callousness.” However, these government workers seem to be incompetent in every way possible. It leads to audience to question how they were able to assume this leadership role in the first place. Even though, they movie is made for entertainment and is meant to be taken as a joke, it brings forth an important issue. Incompetent leaders, like Juan Antonio Samaranch, “lack the skill or will (or both)” to be leaders, but at the end of the day they have assumed these great positions of power and something has to be done to fix not only the problem, but the system that allowed them to climb the step ladder in the first place.

Though I chose to highlight on the intemperance of these characters, they are also prime examples of intemperate and insular leaders. They lack any and all self-control and they have complete disregard for the safety of their followers. All in all, these police officers display numerous characteristics of bad leadership.