Crimson Tide is a 1995 submarine film about a conflict with the Russian Federation. In the movie, there are two main protagonists; one is the commanding officer Captain Ramsey, and his new executive officer Lieutenant Commander Hunter. The movie displays many different traits and attributes of leadership, but mostly it shows the conflict of struggle that can happen between the chain of command, with the rules of the book.
The first scene where leadership is shown is the scene where Ramsey decides to run a drill while there is a fire going on in the kitchen, this has Hunter go talk to the Captain, where the Captain disrespects his XO, and embarrasses him in front of the crew, but it is shown later that the Captain brings the XO to his quarters, where he tells the XO, that he had to make an example, and that if the XO doesn’t like the Captain’s decision, that he should tell him in private, but when they’re around subordinates, he needs to agree and suck it up.
The Captain also ask Hunter if he thinks it’s his fault for the death of one of the subordinates in the fire, and Hunter responds with “no”, and the Captain tells him that it was because the subordinate was overweight. The Captain has great intensions, but has a demanding standard for the XO. The Captain also tells him that if the leadership doesn’t look like they have it together, then the crew will begin to get worried, and that’s what happens next.
The next scene that shows leadership problems is a scene where the USS Alabama is given orders to launch their nuclear missiles at Russia, but a second message is sent out later, but is cut off due to the radio being damaged from a submarine attack. At that point, Captain Ramsey decides that since the second message is cut-off, that he will take action as protocol, and decides he wants to continue with the launch; HOWEVER, Hunter believes that the second message could have been for the launch of the missiles to be terminated.
Then when it