The 3 phases of leadership in LOST

     The episodes of LOST are a great example to exemplify how leaders behave in certain ways according to the Path/Goal theory and as the season advances, we are able to identify the 3 phases of leadership (LMX).

We can distinguish the three phases of leadership (LMX) by just watching a few episodes. In the first episode, the stranger phase is showed when the plane just crashed on the island. Everyone was a little distant and didn’t want to share a lot of information, but Jack acted as a leader immediately and started giving everyone different duties. For example, when Boone was trying to save the lady that was in the plane next to Jack, Jack interfered immediately and asked him to get something while he gave her CPR. Boone didn’t know Jack at all, but he knew that if he followed his instructions he was going to be able to save the lady. Later on, we can identify the acquaintace stage as days pass by and people realize that they might be in the island for a long time. Everyone starts talking to each other and testing the relationships during this stage. Michael realizes that he has to maintain certain distance with Jin-Soo’s wife, Walt talks to John, who tells him that his dog will return, and Charlie tells Kate about the band he had. Finally in the third phase, partnership, we can see how negotiations start like when they are deciding who will go for a hike to get signal for the radio or decide that Kate is going to keep the gun to stop the fights between James and Sayid. This group has a common objective, therefore, they need to have more high quality exchanges to survive in the island. During the next episodes we will see how they remove the obstacles they will face and the goals will become clearer.