Despite being more than sixty years old, twelve o’clock high is a movie that offers valuable lessons concerning leadership skills and the very nature of leadership itself. It reveals not only the power but also the challenges faced by certain leadership styles. The film begins by portraying the Army Air Corps 918th Bombing group as suffering from a classic case of Theory X. The group has low morale and has been experiencing massive losses during bombing missions. As a result, the group finds ways of absconding their duties by pretending to be ill. The soldiers have no incentive to carry out their functions and evade responsibility at all costs. The officers in charge are shown to take a sympathetic approach towards the soldiers by adopting softness by trying to gain their trust which they thought would eventually lead to obedience. Colonel Keith Davenport is the guiltiest of this type of leadership style that is known as Laissez-faire. He has a firm belief in the abilities of the soldiers and cuts them slack even when they do not deserve it.
The high command, however, does not agree with this leadership style as they believe it is distracting the men from performing to their level best in their professional duties and endangering the lives of other people in general due to their continued failure. They, therefore, dismiss the colonel and appoint in his place Frank Savage, who holds the rank of Brigadier General. This new commander takes full control and uses the opportunity to instill discipline among the men. He punishes and demotes personnel who do not follow the procedures and rules that have been put in place. He openly criticizes failures and mistakes and insists on a high level of professionalism and skill. This leadership can be identified with authoritative leadership style where the leader makes all the decisions and is strict and insists on high discipline levels. Although the leadership style leads to elevated levels of stress and unhappy teams and even resignations, the result is quite positive as the performance of the group significantly improves, and the team is more disciplined and fruitful.
Works Cited
YouTube. "Twelve O'clock High 1949." 21 June 2015. YouTube.com. Online. 8 March 2016.
