INTRODUCTION

The Godfather: Part 2 shot in 1974 and the only sequel with an academy award. The movie is

about not only how the organized crime family “Corleone” started by Vito Corleone but also

after Vito’s death, the management of Michael Corleone.

The movie includes organizational behavior topics but I will only discuss about groups,

teams, communication, leadership and power&politics.

I. GROUPS AND GROUPBEHAVIOR

Groups come in many forms, shapes, and sizes. Most managers belong to several different

groups at the same time, some at work, some at community, some formally organized, and

some informal and social in nature.

The organization’s managers to accomplish goals and serve the needs of the organization

deliberately create formal groups. The major purpose of formal groups is to perform specific

tasks and achieve specific objectives defined by the organization. The most common type of

formal work group consists of individuals cooperating under the direction of a leader.

Examples of formal groups are departments, divisions, taskforce, project groups, quality

circles, committees, and boards of directors.

Formal groups are created by the organization and are intentionally designed to direct

members toward some important organizational goal. One type of formal group is referred to

as a command group. Formal organizational group also may be formed around some specific

task. Such a group is referred to as a task group. Unlike command groups, a task group may

be composed of individuals with some special interest or expertise in a specific area

regardless of their positions in the organizational hierarchy.

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Informal groups in organizations are not formed or planned by the organization’s

managers. Rather, they are self-created and evolve out of the formal organization for a variety

of reasons, such as proximity, common interests, or needs of individuals. It would be difficult

for organization to prohibit informal working relationships from developing.

Informal groups develop naturally among an organization’s personnel without any direction

from management. One key factor in the emergence of informal groups is a common interest

shared by its members.

Of course, sometimes the interests that bind individuals together are far more diffuse. Groups

may develop out of a common interest in participating in sports, or going to the movies, or

just getting together to talk. These kinds of informal groups are known as friendship groups.

We can show the committee that investigates Michael is an example of formal and task group.

For the informal group, we can show lots of examples. Fredo taking people to strip club in

Cuba is an example for informal group.

Why do we join groups? There is no single answer to this question. Because most people

belong to a number of groups, it’s obvious that different groups provide different benefits to

members. First major reason is security. By joining a group, individual can reduce the

insecurity of standing alone. That is why Vito started to steal with a man he never knows later

he will be Vito’s partner. Gaining a status and recognition is another reason. Although Vito

has a regular and lawful life, he sees Black Hand and his status is neighborhood. He wanted

status. Every body needs the feeling of self-worth. Vito’s self worth shows itself in the scene

where Black Hand wants money and his partners. Affiliation is fulfilling of social needs by

the group. After got fired from his job Vito is seen to be alone with his wife. He needed a

friend and started stealing with his friend Clemenza. And Vito needs power against the

villains and Black Hand. Vito’s goal is vital; to earn money. To achieve his goal he knows he

should do something and he chooses to steal.

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When we talk about groups we should also talk about roles, norms, status, size and

cohesiveness. Role is a set of expected behavior patterns attributed to someone occupying a

given position in a social unit. Michael Corleone has several roles in the movie; a father, a

mafia leader, a business man, a family care taker and more. Role perception is an individual’s

view of how the individual is supposed to act in a given situation. His father is role model for

Michael, he asks her mother about his father about losing the family. He gets role perception

from his father. Connie wants money and blessing about her marriage shows that Connie’s

expectation from Michael is to be the Godfather as Don Vito was; this is a clear example for

role expectation which is other’s expectations about an individual should act. To the end of

movie, Michael and Kay have an argument about their marriage that’s because the role

conflict of Michael. Michael thinks her wife as his side boys in the mafia and does not act like

a husband but like a villain.

A norm is a team shared concept and exists as a behavior expectation that the members of a

team have regarding the other team members. A norm is created as a reflection of the need for

security manifested through a sense of predictability and regularity in a work environment.

Kissing the hand of Dons is a norm in the movie. Also seeing Michael in fancy suits is an

example appearance norm. And another example for the social arrangement form is even from

his family everybody waits in queue to see Michael. The lawyer Tom Hagen is responsible for

the jobs when Michael is away for business; where we should show this as an example for

allocation of resources norm.

Conformity is adjusting one’s behavior to align with the norms of the group. Here the

Corleone Family is a reference group for Frank Pentangeli and he does not want to lose his

place in family so he accepts to do nothing to Hyman Roth when Michael tells him that he is

in business with Roth. Another example can be showed as Don Vito’s resistance to his friends

about paying rake-off to Black Hand but in this situation Don Vito resist to conformity of his

friends.

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Status is a position or rank given to groups or group members by others. According to status

characteristics theory, differences in status characteristics create hierarchies within groups.

Moreover, status tends to be derived from one of three sources; the power a person wields

over others; a person’s ability to contribute to a group’s goals; and an individual’s personal

characteristics. Michael’s characteristic beyond his brothers make Don Vito to give the

decision for Michael to be the next Don. After Vito’s death Michael status is far more away

from Fredo’s although Fredo is the older.

Size of the group is also important. Every kind of group is better at their areas with the

enough sizes. For example the smaller groups are faster at completing tasks where problem

solving groups are better in large sizes. James Surowiecki tells the problems of getting larger

in the mafia part of Corleone Family in his book “The Wisdom of Crowds”: “And these

problems increase as the business gets bigger, because it becomes harder to stay on top of

everything. Most important, the top-down nature of organization means that Michael becomes

more and more isolated from points of view other than his own.” We can see that illness at the

end of the movie while Michael was sitting alone by the lake.

Not all the members but many members are attracted to each other in the movie. We can talk

about cohesiveness here. Michael and Tom have big attraction to each other. Also they are

step brothers Michael has more respect and sympathy to Tom.

Making decisions and giving orders are at the hand of Michael that makes things go faster and

effective. Although with deep thinking Michael also gives efficient decisions however groups

are better in efficiency while decision making.

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II. TEAMS

From the foregoing, it follows that teamwork is a process whereby a small number of people

with complementary skills become committed to a common purpose and reach agreement on

specific performance targets and indicators, a working approach, and mutual accountability.

There are three major types of teams: problem solving, self-managed, and virtual. Problem

solving teams were just beginning to grow in popularity and most those teams took similar

form. It is composed by the employees from same department who met for a few hours each

week to discuss ways of improving quality, efficiency and the work environment. Self

managed teams are group of employees who perform highly related or interdependent jobs

and take on many of the responsibilities of their former supervisors. And a virtual team use

computer technology to tie together physically dispersed members in order to achieve a

common goal. They allow people collaborate online whether they’re only a room away or

continents apart. Actually in Godfather: Part 2, I was not able to see any kind of teams.

However if the further operations held by people in the meeting in Cuba was observed, they

could form a cross-functional team where cross-functional team is a team made of individuals

from same hierarchy level but from diverse areas to complete a task.

III. COMMUNICATION

Communication, in general, may be defined as the process by which information is exchanged

between individuals using written messages, spoken words, or gestures. It is a dynamic,

interpersonal process in which an individual modifies his response on the basis of the

behavior of the recipient of the message. In the movie we can observe lots of communication

types but not too many of written communication. But to show an example of written

communication the present from Anthony to Michael which is a painting of a car is

acceptable. He asks in the painting if Michael liked it.

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Managers need timely and appropriate information to make sound decisions. Therefore,

communication is essential for the effective functioning of organizations. In the two-way

communication process, a sender or speaker transmits a message to a receiver through a

proper medium and gets feedback from him. Downward communication is the primary means

of organizational communication and is directive in nature. Upward communication is less

frequent and non-directive in nature. Lateral communication or cross-communication involves

communication across the chain of command. Interactive communication helps employees

coordinate their work to achieve overall organizational objectives. The crime organization of

Corleone Family is made of upward-downward communication. The orders from Michael are

example of downward communication and feedbacks are for upward communication. Michael

giving order to Al kill Hyman Roth is downward communication and when Michael is back

from Cuba, Tom’s explanations about what he did when Michael is away and what he bought

for Anthony Vito is upward communication.

Communication need not always involve the exchange of words. Nonverbal communication

refers to the use of nonverbal human responses like facial expressions and gestures and the

perceived characteristics of the environment through which the human verbal and nonverbal

messages are transmitted. Lots of examples of nonverbal communication are hidden in movie.

First is the, at the beginning of movie senators turn cannonball statue to Michael as a threat.

And another example is when Michael gives hug to Fredo, he give a glimpse to Rocco

meaning that “Don’t think that I forgive him. Soon he will be dead.”

There may be a number of interruptions in the communication process that act as barriers to

communication. These barriers may totally prevent communication, filter a part of it, or

convey the wrong meaning. Filtering, selective perception, defensiveness and linguistic

differences are some of the barriers to effective communication. At the first scene of the

movie while Frank talking with Fredo about the difficulty in seeing Mike he use filtering: “I

mean, what do I hafta do, get a letter of introduction to get a sit-down?” Selective perception

is seen when Michael and Kay have an argument after the court scene. Although Michael

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listens Kay, he does not give any reaction about the love ended by Kay. He only reacts about

the children. When Michael talks about his decision to Fredo that ordering him to leave the

family there is an example of defensiveness by Fredo: “Taken care of me. You're my kid

brother and you take care of me. Did you ever think about that -- did you ever once think

about that. Send FREDO off to do this -- send FREDO off to do that! Let FREDO to take care

of some Mickey Mouse night club somewhere! Send FREDO to pick somebody up at the

airport! I'm your older brother Mike and I was stepped over!” Linguistic difference as the last

one is the Vito’s change of surname. In the borders his surname is written as Corleone where

it should be Andolini. Communication apprehension is another major barrier to effective

communication. People who suffer from it experience undue tension and anxiety in oral

communication, written communication, or both. Anthony is a good example, he does not talk

too much and he also does not speak with his mom when Kay comes home to see them

secretly. Giving a painting, with a question, to Michael shows his anxiety about talking.

A network refers to a group of people who develop and maintain contact with others to

exchange information of common interest in an informal manner. The grapevine is an

informal network in which information moves freely in all directions, goes beyond the chain

of authority and satisfies the social needs of organizational members. At the mom’s funeral

Connie talks to Michael to forgive Fredo which leads us that a grapevine exists between

Connie and Fredo.

In a formal group the network between members occurs in three common ways. In chain

model, the information flows from person to person where in a wheel model the information

flows from a leader to downward. All-channel model is generally practiced in self managed

teams, in which all members are free to contribute and no one takes a leadership role. In the

movie the leader is Michael in Corleone Family. And in the early stages of Don Vito’s small

theft team, all-channel model is present.

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In the movie, face-to-face conversations are everywhere. That provides high channel richness

and in a scene while Fredo and his wife is sleeping, Johnny Ola reaches him by the telephone.

The time movie was shot gave these channel opportunities. I am sure if the movie was shot by

our time there will be lots of instant messaging telling that “ Job is done, boss! “ .

Cultures tend to differ in the importance to which context influences the meaning that

individuals take from what is actually said or written in the light of who the other person is.

High context culture, rely heavily on nonverbal and subtle situational cues when

communicating with others. What is not said may be more significant than what is said. Low

context culture, rely on words to convey meaning. Body titles or formal titles are secondary to

spoken and written words. At the beginning of movie while senator and Michael are talking

about the casinos that Michael wants to control a low context culture speech is made by the

senator: “Because I intend to squeeze you. I don't like your kind of people. I don't like to see

you come out to this clean country in your oily hair -- dressed up in those silk suits - and try to

pass yourselves off as decent Americans. I'll do business with you, but the fact is, I despise

your masquerade -- the dishonest way you pose yourself. Yourself, and your whole f***

family.” After the death of the girl that senator slept with Tom – a man of Corleone Family-

talks with senator: “This girl has no family -- nobody knows that she worked here. It'll be as if

she never existed. All that's left is our friendship.” In this sentence “all that’s left is our

friendship” means “senator you are in our hands now, you will help us with the licenses and

you will get nothing”.

IV. LEADERSHIP

Leadership has a range of definitions, but at its simplest it is concerned with the ability to

influence others to achieve goals. We can show Michael as a leader in the movie.

Implementing trait theories of leadership to the movie, not also Vito but also Michael is born

leader. They are both conscientious that means they are disciplined and keep commitments

they make.

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We can call Michael as an initiating leader because his men are assigned to specific tasks by

himself and also he expects %100 success from them.

Fiedler contingency model assumes that group performance depends on, leadership style,

described in terms of task motivation and relationship motivation. After deciding the leader is

task or relationship oriented, situational favorableness should be considered that is determined

by three situations; leader-member relations, task structure and position power. Here Michael

is task oriented and the biggest task is to earn money and be the most powerful. He is

accepted and supported by his men but he uses his all power and his punishment is death if he

sees any problem in his family, both his own and mafia. He is a “category I” leader according

to Fiedler model.

Charismatic leadership can be found at several levels of an organization, but usually at the

top. These leaders, as the name suggests, are very charismatic. Rudyard Kupling said,” Words

are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.” And these leaders know it well.

They know the power of words, either in writing or in speech, to electrify the atmosphere and

to move the hearts of men. They have attractive personalities. They are people with high

relationship intelligence. They know how to approach another person and win them over to

his cause. They are generally physically good looking people. Hence they are able to attract

their followers on all levels; body, soul and spirit. Not all of them have the qualities like being

good-looking and having an attractive personality, but they can win people over nonetheless

with a beautifully painted picture of what their future could be. Michael has lots of leadership

styles and charismatic leadership is one of them. The description fits Michael almost exactly.

He is good looking, he knows how to use words for example he use the phrase “Keep your

friends close, your enemies closer.” and he deceives Frank. Another major leadership style we

can observe that Michael shows is autocratic style. Autocratic leaders tell their subordinates

what to do, how exactly to do it and what is expected of them and specifying conditions for

good performance and deadlines. An autocratic leadership style is somewhat like a directive

leadership style; but autocratic leaders are generally more task oriented. They expect their

task to be done and they do not consider their follower’s feelings in their decision-making. 9

Michael gives orders by himself and do not involve his friends in decision making however he

listens Tom’s ideas but still his decisions are the final decisions.

If we analyze Michael’s leader actions towards his goals, he listens and observes. He is silent

and allows time to identify, define and assess the personnel working with him. He is also

patient. His mental discipline is very high, he is calm and observant while waiting for the

right time. He is a good strategic manager and option explorer. By these analyses Michael is

also a transformational leader.

When we talk about leadership, trust is an important issue in organizations. Trust is a positive

expectation that another will not act opportunistically. There are five dimensions of trust;

integrity, competence, consistency, loyalty and openness. Integrity refers to honesty and

truthfulness. Although Tom hides the proposal from Las Vegas, we can show his integrity as

an example. Competence encompasses an individual’s technical and interpersonal knowledge

and skills. Again Tom as a lawyer has enough skills that he deals with every bureaucracy of

the family. Don Vito also trusted him and so Michael. Consistency is particularly relevant

with managers. It relates to an individual’s reliability, predictability and good judgment in

handling operations. Although Michael’s decisions are mostly villain but he handles all

situations also bringing Frank’s brother to court is an example. Loyalty is the willingness to

protect and save face for another person. Tom, unnamed body guard, Rocco and Al are loyal

to Michael in the movie. Openness is the final dimension of trust. Tom was open to Michael

till he hid the proposal from Las Vegas. In mafia part deterrence-based trust is dominant.

Deterrence-based trust is based on consistency of behavior, meaning that people will follow

through on what they promise they are going to do. Such behavioral consistency is sustained

by threats or promises of consequences that will result if consistency and promises are not

maintained. We can understand that from the murder of Fredo.

V. POWER & POLITICS

Power is said to pervade all facets of negotiation. Indeed, the very idea of negotiation

intuitively conjures images of power contests and tough bargaining. However, a more

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comprehensive understanding of power reveals how it actually influences negotiation,

decision-making and people. There are two major bases of power; formal and personal and

Michael has all this powers.

Formal power has three types of power. Firstly, legitimate power comes from the ability to

influence because of position. People at higher levels have power over the people below.

However, each person with legitimate power applies their own individual style. It represents

the formal authority to control and use organizational resources. Secondly, reward power can

be gained from one's capacity to reward compliance. Reward power is used to support

legitimate power. When someone is rewarded or might receive a potential reward such as

through recognition, a good job assignment, a pay rise, or additional resources to complete a

job, the employee may respond in kind by carrying through with orders, requests and

directions. And lastly, coercive power is the opposite of reward power. It is the ability of the

power holder to remove something from a person or to punish them for not conforming with a

request. It rests on the application, or the threat of application, of physical sanctions such as

the infliction of pain, the generation of frustration through restriction of movement, or the

controlling by force of basic physiological or safety need, and usually death in the movie.

Because he is going to be the new Don and his father’s trust for him, Michael has an

incredible legitimate power. As we can see at the beginning at the movie people kiss

Michael’s hand and in Godfather: Part 3 he becomes a Don. Of course the punishment of

Michael is very hush; death. This is the coercive power of Michael.

The first type of personal power is expert power. Any individual person who has an expertise

that is highly valued possesses expert power. Experts have power even though their status

might be regarded as being low. A person may have expert knowledge about technical,

administrative, or personal matters. The harder it becomes to replace an expert; the higher

becomes the degree of expert power that they possess. Expert power is occasionally called

information power and is frequently a personal trait of the individual. The second one is

referent power. People are influenced and tend to identify with a person because of their

personality or behavior. The magnetic appeal of this individual forms the basis of referent

power. A person with an appealing personality is admired because of their personality. The

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power of an individual's appeal is an indication of their referent power. Michael was expected

to be a senator even the president of United States of America. He was in the college until he

joined army. In army and in the college he had several experiences and also his father Vito

was a big role model for his as I early stated. Here we can see Vito’s referent power as

Michael wants to be like him. And expert power of Michael makes him the top of mafia

family but also Tom can be shown as another example of expertise.

Dependence is created when one person has more power than another. In particular control of

knowledge and access to rare resources can lead to a queue of people lined up outside your

door. Michael wants no threat to his family like his father did and Corleone Family to

continue their illegal job as number one all over the country. He eliminates nearly most of his

rivals. When there is a little amount of mafia leaders, Michael will be the Don and they will

be dependent to him. This leads us to importance and scarcity which increase dependency. He

wants to control whole mafia, that he will be perceived Don and important. And having

control of scarce sources everybody will have to take permission from him again.

VI. CONCLUSION

We all need interaction with other people to satisfy our daily needs. We come together for

specific goals or we perform teams in our organizational works. Every second is an example

for individuals’ and organizations’ behaviors. The movie is about a leader’s deals with his

own family and his crime organization. I observed lots of examples about behaviors this time

because watching the movie in a manner of catching organization structure. Although we

don’t recognize or have the aspects, behaviors are the basic things in our moments.

Sustainability of the Godfather management is neither possible nor desirable. Leadership is

not dictatorship and Godfather management can easily become the latter. The danger in

Godfather management, as with any use of power, is that it may become institutionalized.

Godfather management is merely a short duration transitory tool designed to foster stability in

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a chaotic situation. For some leaders the taste of power may be overwhelming and power

itself becomes an addictive motivator. However being a powerful leader is important unless

you can use your power in a good manner or you will be left alone as Michael Corleone, the

new Don.

REFERENCES:

1. http://www.pathways.cu.edu.eg/subpages/training_courses/teams/chapter2.htm

2. Stephen P. Robbins, Timothy A., “Organizational Behavior (12th Edition)” pp.298-477

3. http://www.organizationalbehaviorleadership.com/team-norms/

4. http://www.adb.org/Documents/Information/Knowledge-Solutions/working-in-teams.pdf

5. http://www.icmrindia.org/courseware/organizational%20behavior/OB-DS5.htm

6. http://www.jgeoff.com/godfather/gf2/transcript/gf2transcript.html

7.http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FPHN

%2FPHN12_08%2FS1368980009990395a.pdf&code=7751616c0e81febd3592b187924f0996

8. http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~gerard/MENG/ME96/Documents/Styles/conti.html

9. http://www.leadership-with-you.com

10. Dr. Deborah Goodwin “International Diplomacy” the MSc in Global Governance and

Diplomacy 2008-09 program at the University of Oxford

11. http://www.negotiationtraining.com.au/articles/referral-expertise/

12. http://changingminds.org/principles/dependence.htm

13. http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/Str-Ti/Teams-and-Teamwork.html#b

14. James T. Scarnati, The Godfather Theory of Management: an exercise in power and

control, Management Decision 40/9 (2002) pp. 834-841

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