Woody

The character Woody is a cowboy who acts as one of the main leaders who the gang of toys aspire to.

He’s independent and strong willed with good management skills who can express himself to others. Woody cares about the other toys and takes them into consideration when he makes a decision. These qualities as a leader were scuppered at first as he, as all the toys, needed to ‘belong and be loved’ by Andy. This relates to Maslow's (1943) hierarchy of needs theory, 'love and belonging', where love, friendship, family are important. Because of his need to belong with his owner, Andy, he deserted the toys to get back to him. However, as soon as he found his friends were in trouble, his loyalty to them superceded his own feelings and he went back and fought for them, risking his own life to save them.


Woody could be described as a Transformational Leader, who Hartley and Benington 2010) describe as someone who induces positive feelings in their followers and motivates loyal and committed performances.  He won the trust and loyalty of the other toys so they were emotionally inclined to do more than would be expected.

This leadership style has been criticised by encouraging followers to go beyond their own self-interests and emotionally engage followers in pursuit of evil ends. (Bass, 1997). The toys could have quite easily been destroyed in their plight to escape with Woody. Luckily Woody helped “transform” the toys into productive and successful individuals, enabling a rescue mission which resulted in the toys ending in a new home where they were loved and 'belonged' to a new owner 'Bonnie'.

Famous Person who relates to Woody

Eisenhower V Woody traits.

‘’the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it”

Dwight Eisenhower loved life and people; he believed in people's strengths and was very sympathetic to their failings. He commanded thousands, but never saw the men as numbers, he remembered that each man was an individual with hopes and aspirations of his own, with a family back home that loved them.

He felt passionate about people suffering from the Nazi's and this 'caring' informed decisions which made him a great general and later, president. Woody cared about the toys and had to rescue them from Lotso who could be described as a tyrannical Nazi. Eisenhower also had a fondness for cowboy stories!