Brigadier General Savage: an Epitome of Holistic Leadership - Movie Review Example

After that, as the group reacted to his effectual tactics Savage changed to a persuasive leadership approach. Assessing their actions and performance he was successful in organizing their tasks, evaluate the positive outcomes and constructively assess the performance of the group members. Gaining more victories he was able to engage every member of the group to team up for the ultimate triumph of the organization. A lot of audiences will, on the surface, find this movie to be merely another remarkable old war film.

Nevertheless, on a deeper look, it turns out to be a splendid discourse on understanding an indicative pattern of leadership approaches, which will fulfill a valuable function in the fate of the Army. The military in the twenty-first century faces drastic transformations in its missions, facilities, equipment, hierarchies, and organization. Financial allocations will keep on getting smaller while operations will become more numerous (Bognar, 1998). With these transformations, the importance of an exceptional, strong leadership will stay unchanged.

By analyzing the decisions, actions, and performance of Savage, military leaders can systematically understand the fundamental ideas of a symptomatic paradigm of leadership approaches. After reaching the 918th Bomber Group, Brigadier General Savage observes that order and obedience is almost absent. The members of the team show poor consideration of military respect, are unruly and frequently intoxicated Savage at once appraises personnel records of lower ranking leaders. Ben Gately, the Air Executive Officer Lieutenant Colonel, has a good record, but he is absent from this post.

Savage discovered that he is missing from the landing field. He immediately instructs the Military officers to take Gately for questioning. Once Gately is captured, Savage reprimands him for not fulfilling his duties and for being immediately blameworthy for the previous leader’s defeat (Lay & Bartlett, 1980). Savage removes Gately from his post but does not arrange his reassignment. Rather, Savage proclaims, “I’m not going to pass the buck… I’m going to keep you right here” (Bognar, 1998, 94).

He made Gately bomber leader and instructs Gately to put the label ‘Leper Colony’ (ibid, p. 94) on his aircraft. He afterward transfers all of the nonconformists of the 918th and repairs Gately’s group. Even though the methods of Savage may seem to be humiliating, he is in fact doing the right thing. The persuasive, or charismatic, leader is usually articulate, extremist, and untraditional, commonly acting as a transformative catalyst (Quinn, 1996). Savage shows a strange intuition. He believes Gately can be a very efficient pilot and leader, but someone who requires rekindling.

The aspiration of Savage is for Gately to emerge from a self-centered to a self-sacrificing form and be instilled with a firm professional conduct. Savage displays transformational inclinations of a charismatic leader. By granting Gately an opportunity to regain his good reputation, Savage finally directs him to self-actualization. Gately in time realizes his decisions and behavior strongly influence the group’