Jeremy, the leader.

This episode, we got to see what happens when a leadership position is vacated. With the exit of Josh, Reed was the obvious emergent leader to take his place for that side of the tribe, though his leadership didn’t seem very organized throughout this episode. A game was played where one member tries to knock off the other into a pool of mud. The reward for the winning team was a trip on a yacht with sandwiches and drinks. The yellow team won the challenge. Both Jeremy and Natalie gave up their rewards to John and Jaclyn.

This demonstrated a portion of the 5M model of leadership effectiveness in how Jeremy contributed to group motivation. Since John and Jaclyn switched to his team in the last episode, he appropriately rewarded the members of his group for their contribution to the group. Natalie stated that the reason for them trading was because they showed loyalty and they wanted to reward them for that loyalty. This also showed some model leadership qualities as well. The reward was a way of praising them for their contribution. One of the ways to model leadership is to publicly praise group members not only within the group but also to others outside the group. This was very prevalent in this moment.

When reading the chapter, I also found the section about gender in leadership very interesting and relevant in this episode. Men have been the primary leaders in the most recent episodes. Even Natalie is seen as a support to Jeremy even though she displays some of the same leadership characteristics.