12 O'Clock High

Way back on Leadership Reverie post #2 ("What can we learn about leadership from a movie?"), I talked about one of my all-time favorite movies, Gettysburg, which is based on the 1974 historical novel, The Killer Angels by the late Michael Shaara.  The movie is a Masters class lesson in leadership, which I suppose is one of the reasons that I enjoy watching it over and over again.  As it turns out, you can actually learn a lot about leadership from the movies.  I can think of several excellent movies or series that I've personally found to be instructive.  Here are a few, in no particular order:

1. Invictus, the 2009 film starring Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman that tells the story of how South Africa won the 1995 Rugby World Cup, which was held in South Africa shortly after the end of apartheid.

2. Band of Brothers, a 2001 HBO television series that tells the story of the men of Easy Company, a101st Airborne Infantry company during the European Theater of World War II.

3. The Bridge on the River Kwai, an epic movie filmed in 1957, starring Sir Alec Guiness and William Holden, that tells the story of a group of American and British soldiers held in a Japanese prison camp during the Pacific Theater of World War II.

4. Apollo 13, the absolutely amazing story of the astronauts of the doomed space mission, Apollo 13, starring Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, Ed Harris, Kevin Bacon, and Gary Sinise.

5. McFarland, USA, a 2015 movie not too many people have heard of that stars Kevin Costner as a high school cross country coach.

6. Hoosiers, the 1986 movie that tells the story of a rural high school basketball team that goes on to win the Indiana High School Basketball State Championship.

All of these movies have great teaching points on how to be a leader, and they are all really great stories too. If I had to pick just one movie on leadership though, hands down it would have to be the 1949 movie, Twelve O'Clock High, starring Gregory Peck.  The movie's lessons on leadership are so powerful, in fact, that the U.S. Navy has used it in some of its leadership courses for officers (that's actually how I came to know of the movie in the first place - we had to watch the movie during my Officer Indoctrination School in one of our classes called "Military Leadership").  Many leadership experts have called it the definitive movie on leadership.  

The movie takes place at a U.S. Air Force base in England during World War II.  Gregory Peck plays Brigadier General Frank Savage, a tough, no nonsense kind of leader who takes over a rag-tag bomber squadron whose former commanding officer was both popular and much loved by his men, but unfortunately not very effective as a leader.  Savage takes over a squadron whose combat readiness and effectiveness has reached the bottom depths.  It's a great story of an amazing turnaround.  By the end of the movie (I won't spoil it), Savage has turned the squadron into one of the most effective outfits in the entire Air Force.

Here are a few tidbits on leadership from the movie:

1. Accountability is everything - When Savage first encounters the squadron, men are not wearing their uniforms properly, security guards aren't asking for identification, and the men are spending most of their time at the bar.  Discipline is lax.  Savage restores accountability and discipline, which goes a long way to establishing his role as the leader of the unit.

2. Develop leaders - Savage takes a personal interest in building a core group of leaders.  He takes one of the most talented pilots and places him in charge of one of the worst air crews.  Under the pilot's new leadership, the air crew becomes one of the strongest in the squadron.

3. Promote excellence - Leaders inadvertently encourage behaviors that they tolerate.  Accept nothing but excellence.  And when you see examples of excellence, reward it.

4. "Communicate the why" - A leader's job is to create a vision and make sure that everyone understands and works towards that vision.

5. Leadership is lonely - The former commanding officer became too close to his men and would refuse to ask them to take risks.  While that is certainly admirable, it doesn't work too well during a war.  As a leader, you can certainly be friendly to everyone, but you can't be everyone's friend.  There is a distance that should separate leaders from their teams.

It's an amazing movie, and I encourage you all to watch it!  You will pick up a lot of lessons on leadership, and the story is definitely worth the investment of time too.