Wall Street Leadership Analysis

“Wall Street” Leadership Analysis

The 1987 film “Wall Street” was a very interesting film to dissect for several different reasons. I was extremely interested because I am currently in a finance class, as well as a lecture class where we discuss the ethical side of business. However, I will be analyzing the film from a leadership perspective. Throughout this paper I will discuss the leadership qualities and styles of Bud Fox, Gordon Gekko, and Bud’s father. Although they all deal with the financial sector of Wall Street, each character takes an extremely different approach to the situations at hand.

There were several different leadership themes and issues that arose in “Wall Street”, but I think the most overriding themes were greed, a clear conscious, and manipulation. Obviously, Gordon Gekko views greed as “good” for lack of a better term, as he told the shareholders at the meeting. Gekko believes that greed is what drives the economy and each individual in the market. While I agree that it is always good to take personal interest, I believe that Gekko clearly overstepped the boundary with the greed and self-satisfaction he was achieving. It is not necessarily bad to be greedy if you achieve those means through effort, hard work, and legally. Second, I believe that a clear conscious was a constant theme throughout the movie. Bud Fox begins in the film by questioning the ethics of Gordon Gekko immediately when Gekko asks if he has any information. However, Fox conforms to Gekko’s irreverent ways and falls prey to greed. Once he realizes the implications of his errors, Fox attempts to do the right thing and save his father’s company, Blue Star Airlines. The final theme that I noticed was manipulation. Gekko was a master at manipulating the people around him, and as a result Gekko was ultimately able to toy with the entire stock market at times. He was able to take a clean Bud Fox and turn him into a dirty investor that schemed as an inside trader....