The Long Forgotten post…

So it finally happened; I missed a few blog posts unfortunately preparing for other classes during our university’s “dead week”. This blog though I hope to talk about the past two episodes and how critical the types of leaders and power are in this game. At the end of the first episode(11/26/14) Reed was the 10th member voted out and in the extended episode(12/3/14) Wes and Alec were voted out.

In each of these episodes, once again Jon and Jacklyn were the final decision makers. I feel that eventually Jon let that go to his head effecting the decisions that came afterwards. Obviously though, after Jeremy the key leaders were Reed and Jon. I felt that both Reed and Jon held qualities of being a leader, they spoke very often, especially when it concerned the direction of the game. However I felt that Reed didn’t listen well to others, consider when everyone was under tension because of the fight between Jacklyn and Jon. All Reed could think about was how he could get them to make up because his ass was on the line. If he spent more time listening to both parties problem he might have been able to defuse the situation but instead he basically was just rushing them to makeup on their own so he could get their vote decision. Jon however, seemed to listen to what another member said, even if it was Reed, and considered all of his options, even discussed it with Jacklyn before hand to gain more incite to make the right choice. This game is particularly hard to be a true leader in my opinion because in the end it’s an individual winner. But Jon and Reed would both offer their opinions when problems arose and tried to learn as much as possible and would share as much information as they knew with their alliance so they all had the best chance (Jon with Natalie about his immunity idol; Reed with Jon about his plan to flip on him if he didn’t side with him towards the end).

The types of power in this game came heavily from information (idols and plans) and reward challenges. Which based on our book if someone has informational power they control and transmit needed information and reward power controls and gives out resources valued by members. I believe that each alliance would use these powers as a whole group (group meaning who ever was on a particular alliance at a particular time). I think that when it came to power over the game, even though there were obvious leaders, each player played a role in gaining and giving power. For example, when Natalie found out that Keith had an idol, that information gave her an Baylor the advantage and more power over everyone else because they also found an idol because they knew that Keith could play his. Also when Natalie picked Jacklyn and Jon t shared her Spaghetti/Bed Reward only to get Jon on her side.

Lastly I wanted to talk about the types of leaders that we’ve seen in the past couple of games. I feel, even though I haven’t mentioned her yet, Natalie is a huge, quiet, leader. Jon, Reed and Natalie, to me are all autocratic leaders that want to control the direction of the game by making the decisions even is they have to lie to their members. It’s hard to have a democratic leader when you have a competitive game, everyone wants to win.