Savage's Differences In The Movie Leadership
Leadership is an essential skill for military officers. It allows them to overcome limited resources by using motivation and courage. The most important thing to successful military command is the focus on the people, because it makes it possible to achieve the mission and military is always about teamwork. To understand this, I will explain the differences between the two styles of leadership. The movie was about the 918th Bomber Group in World War II. This military unit changed, from low morale and ineffective to a team of highly motivated individuals, after a new commander arrived. The leadership style made the difference between Col. Davenport and Brig. Gen. Savage. Both of them had a different concept of the maximum effort and focus
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on the people, as we can see in the next paragraphs. Col. Davenport was a noble man, but he was deeply involved with his men (“over identificated,” according to the plot). It resulted in avoiding risks since he considered that was necessary to protect the crews above all. He was very popular but ineffective about his mission, always assuming the responsibility for the mistakes of his men. In addition, he was close-minded about changing the altitude of the flight, choosing safety instead of precision. The outcome of this was a low concentration of bombing and spending resources without reaching the desired effects. Maximum effort means being able to fly every day under good health conditions and bringing back the most airplanes possible for the next mission. On the other hand, Brig.
Gen Savage was a strict man and he decided that first he will recover the discipline of all the Airmen in the group. The pilots displayed their initial resistance to change by submitting requests for transfer shortly after Brig. Gen. Savage’s assumption of command. The leadership of Col Davenport created a comfort zone that the new commander wanted it to disappear, using the phrase “consider yourself already dead.” By doing this, he was putting the missions as the focus and the lives of the Airmen second. With the same team, Brig. Gen. Savage got the first success and reduced the casualties after every sortie. He increased the morale in the group, making the entire unit involved with the missions. Furthermore, Savage considered group integrity as one of the core values of the 918th Bomber Group related to safety during the flights.
Leadership plays an important role in establishing vision and goals. For this group, the challenge was the most important motivation, setting the goal higher and higher until the Joint Staff assigned the most important targets to them. While Davenport was worried about surviving, Savage wanted to hit the main bulls and help win the war. The first was a goal too low, the second one implied higher risk with high stress. It was Savage’s concept of maximum
effort.
The meaning of focus on the people was different for the two commanders. Over protection resulted in low efficiency, but motivation and challenge resulted in success. There was no technological difference, no new crews arriving, only the discipline and commitment changed. The case of the “leper colony” was an example of how to modify the conduct of a human group, evaluating the individual performances and differentiating the outstanding men from the lower results.
In conclusion, the focus on the people was the way to convert an inefficient unit in a valuable team with highly motivated members. The maximum effort meant to Brig. Gen Savage to get the total commitment with high risks, giving them the pride for their actions as the outcome of their devotion to the mission.
on the people, as we can see in the next paragraphs. Col. Davenport was a noble man, but he was deeply involved with his men (“over identificated,” according to the plot). It resulted in avoiding risks since he considered that was necessary to protect the crews above all. He was very popular but ineffective about his mission, always assuming the responsibility for the mistakes of his men. In addition, he was close-minded about changing the altitude of the flight, choosing safety instead of precision. The outcome of this was a low concentration of bombing and spending resources without reaching the desired effects. Maximum effort means being able to fly every day under good health conditions and bringing back the most airplanes possible for the next mission. On the other hand, Brig.
Gen Savage was a strict man and he decided that first he will recover the discipline of all the Airmen in the group. The pilots displayed their initial resistance to change by submitting requests for transfer shortly after Brig. Gen. Savage’s assumption of command. The leadership of Col Davenport created a comfort zone that the new commander wanted it to disappear, using the phrase “consider yourself already dead.” By doing this, he was putting the missions as the focus and the lives of the Airmen second. With the same team, Brig. Gen. Savage got the first success and reduced the casualties after every sortie. He increased the morale in the group, making the entire unit involved with the missions. Furthermore, Savage considered group integrity as one of the core values of the 918th Bomber Group related to safety during the flights.
Leadership plays an important role in establishing vision and goals. For this group, the challenge was the most important motivation, setting the goal higher and higher until the Joint Staff assigned the most important targets to them. While Davenport was worried about surviving, Savage wanted to hit the main bulls and help win the war. The first was a goal too low, the second one implied higher risk with high stress. It was Savage’s concept of maximum
effort.
The meaning of focus on the people was different for the two commanders. Over protection resulted in low efficiency, but motivation and challenge resulted in success. There was no technological difference, no new crews arriving, only the discipline and commitment changed. The case of the “leper colony” was an example of how to modify the conduct of a human group, evaluating the individual performances and differentiating the outstanding men from the lower results.
In conclusion, the focus on the people was the way to convert an inefficient unit in a valuable team with highly motivated members. The maximum effort meant to Brig. Gen Savage to get the total commitment with high risks, giving them the pride for their actions as the outcome of their devotion to the mission.