Question

12 0 clock high movie

Where does the 918th fit into the Leadership Grid under COL Davenport? Where does it fit into the Leadership Grid under BG Savage? Why? Give examples from the film? Could be more than one position as the film progresses.

Answer 1

The plain text is here as I had meant to be, only without the grids and diagrams. For that the images are pasted trailing below.

Leading people and producing results in the face of adversities and in this case, confronting the ultimate adversary, death.

Rather than making a team member take up his/her impending task and duties, trying to spend some time to understand the person is what makes a better leader.

Figure: The Blake Mouton Managerial Grid

Let us discuss the above figure and its values in all the four grids and try to fit in the characters of your mentioned movie into the types of leadership as shown in the grid.

So, as per the above grid, we can safely say there are 5 types of management or leadership for that matter -

Impoverished: This person is probably the weakest possible leader, who is neither concerned about the results of the task at hand, nor the people, who are actually supposed to fetch the result for him/her. As can be seen in the above figure, this leadership draws the lowest in both the X & the Y axes.

The result of such quadrant will always be lack of organisation and a dissatisfied team at hand.

Produce or Perish: This person has all his focus on the result and is least or not bothered to take care of the needs (development, skillsets, interests, etc.) of his/her team members; He is here to tell, work or get out.

This style may fetch results, under the threat, to begin with, but low morale is not good for keeping up efficient results.

Middle-of-the-road: This position of a leader apparently shows a possible balance of concerns for the task and the needs of his/her team members; But it actually is kind of compromise in all respects. The failure to command performance or understanding team members’ needs completely, result in mediocrity after all.

Results of such a team is unreliable and inefficient performance.

Country Club: This leader is mostly concerned about the team’s needs and care for it almost all the time. The concern for the task at hand, let alone focus, is too low.

This might look as a relaxed and happy team, quite content with the leadership quality, but ultimately productivity is poor and this happiness cannot, in such circumstances, be consistent, under complete lack of motivation and control.

Team: This is by far the best type of leader, who makes sure to understand the needs of his team and at the same time ensures that the team understands are always aware of the targets and goals of the organisation and that they are stake holders to the result.

The trust and respect in this environment binds the team as an indigenous unit yielding very high quality of teamwork resulting in highest levels of efficiency and productivity.

Now, to fit the characters into the above structure should be fairly easy owing to their behavior and outcome in the movie.

time to understand the person is what makes a better leader.

Examples from the movie:

Davenport: “Davenport has become too emotionally close to his men and may no longer be fit to command”

Savage claims that he did not hear the recall due to radio malfunction and instead persuades Pritchard to recommend the group for a Distinguished Unit Citation. Savage also acquires a surrogate son in Lieutenant Jesse Bishop, a Medal of Honor recipient who is Savage's eyes and ears among the combat aircrews. When the Inspector General arrives to investigate the pilots' transfer requests, Savage packs his belongings, expecting to be relieved of command and possibly court-martialed. But, led by Bishop, the pilots withdraw their requests. Savage also softens his attitude towards the men as he becomes more closely involved with them. Gately goes on to win Savage's respect and admiration by demonstrating extraordinary leadership and courage in combat.