Leadership Lessons from Hollywood War Movies: The Bridge of the River Kwai

Films have a huge impact on the human mind. Films can communicate, embody and articulate the effectiveness of behaviours of leadership.

Hollywood has a variety of award-winning films that portray the heroism and sacrifices   of different military leaders in battlefield.

 

The Bridge of the River Kwai

Film. The Bridge on the River Kwai was released in 1957, directed by David Lean and based on the novel Le Pont de la Rivière Kwaï (1952) by Pierre Boulle. The cast of this movie included William Holden, Jack Hawkins, Alec Guinness, and Sessue Hayakawa.

 

Plot. In early 1943, the Japanese Army prisoned British POWs in a camp of Burma. The commandant, Colonel Saito ordered to construct a railway bridge on the river Kwai to connect the Bangkok and Rangoon. The senior British officer, Lieutenant Colonel Nicholson, found this order as a complete violation of Geneva Convention and disagree to build the bridge. Saito threatened to have them shot, but Nicholson refuses to back down to work and Saito left the prisoners standing all day in the intense heat and locked Nicolson in an iron box. Temporarily, the prisoners worked as little as possible on bridgework and tried to delay the work. There was an obligation for Saito to finish the work by a deadline and if he missed the deadline, he would be obliged to commit ritual suicide. Nicholson was shocked by the poor job performance of his men. He ordered Captain Reeves and Major Hughes to design and build a proper bridge to maintain his men’s morale. The team found that the design of the Japanese Engineers was faulty and the construction site was selected poorly. They decided to build a new bridge downstream. Shears, an American Navy man, was compelled to volunteer to destroy the bridge by a British Major Warden. Shears and Joyce plant explosives on the bridge towers below the water line at night. However, by next morning the water level had dropped, uncovering the connecting wires of the explosives to the detonator.

 

Leadership Qualities

There are two dominant leadership roles displayed in this movie: Colonel Saito and Lieutenant Nicholson. Both Colonel Nicholson and Colonel Saito’s style of leadership could be described as task-motivated.

Colonel Saito as an authoritarian, directive, path-goal oriented leader. His only goal target was to complete the bridge in time with fear or rewards. This also falls under the category of transactional leadership.

Nicolson seems an indirect, path-goal oriented leader, with high ethics and moralities.

 

Recommendation

 

This film is recommended to be watched by the young military leaders.

Titbits

This film has won seven Academy Awards in multiple categories (oscar.org). According to American Film Institute (2007), in 1997, the film was deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress. It has been included on the American Film Institute’s list of best American films ever made. In 1999, the British Film Institute voted The Bridge on the River Kwai the 11th greatest British film of the 20th Century.

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References

Guibla, J. (2016). Leadership’s Lessons from “The Bridge of the River Kwai.” St. Cloud State University Master of Public Administration Program. Retrieved on December 22, 2018 from https://scsumpaprogram.wordpress.com/2016/12/26/leaderships-lessons-from-the- bridge-of-the-river-kwai/

 

Kapur, V., & Gahlot, S. (2012, October 08). Leadership Analysis: The Bridge on The River Kwai. Mbaskool.com. Retrieved on December 22, 2018 from https://www.mbaskool.com/business–articles/human-resource/5169-leadership-analysis- the-bridge-on-the-river-kwai.html

Presidential Global Scholars. (2012). Leadership lens: Bridge on the River Kwai. Retrieved on December 23, 2018 from https://blogs.lt.vt.edu/pgs2012/2012/03/leadership-lens-bridge- on-the-river-kwai/

Kirkpatrick, T. (2017, May 18). 8 awesome enlisted leaders depicted in war movies. https://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/8-awesome- enlisted-leaders-depicted-in-war-movies.

Guthrie, K. L., & Jenkins, D. M. (2018). The role of leadership educators: Transforming learning. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

 

Rajendran, D., & Andrew, M. (2014). Using film to elucidate leadership effectiveness models: Reflection on authentic learning experiences. Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice, 11(1), 8.