176: Leadership Lessons from Hollywood War Movies: Schindler’s List

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.

Schindler’s List

Film. Schindler’s List is an American epic historical period drama film released in 1993, directed and co-produced by Steven Spielberg and written by Steven Zaillian. It is based on the novel Schindler’s Ark by Australian novelist Thomas Keneally.

Plot. Schindler’s List illustrates the profoundly nightmarish Holocaust. It re-creates a dark, frightening period during World War II, when Nazi-occupied Krakow first dispossessed Jews of their businesses and homes, then placed in ghettos and forced labour camps in Plaszow, and finally resettled in concentration camps for execution. Oskar Schindler, a German businessperson and an opportunist member of the Nazi party acquires a factory for the production of mess kits and cooking paraphernalia. Without prior experience, he gained a contact, Itzhak Stern, who has links with the underground Jewish business community in the ghetto. They loan him the money for the factory in return for a small share of products produced for trade in the black market. Schindler witnesses the horrifying visions of the Holocaust and the toll it takes on the Jewish people. Schindler’s motivations switch from profit to human sympathy and by lavishly bribing the SS officials; he is able to save over 1,100 Jews from death in the gas chambers.

Leadership Aspects

Two distinct and extreme leadership pattern are visible for two characters in this movie.

Oskar Schindler is the transformational leader Schindler is a perceptive, charismatic businessperson who can do anything to make a fortune. Schindler slowly transforms to a courageous, sympathetic leader determined to use his power and persuasive charisma for the betterment of the Jews. Sacrificing his safety and wealth to help others, Schindler bravely stands up for what he believes in through bribing Nazi/SS commanders to protect his Jewish workers and keep his factory a safe “sub-camp” for them. Demonstrating courage, kindness, assertiveness, and charisma all in the face of one of history’s most ruthless regimes Schindler provides an extraordinary example of leadership.

Nazi commander Amon Goeth is an autocratic leader, using a ruthless, authoritarian leadership style to assert his power and control over the Jews of the Plaszów work camp. Deeply rooted in Nazi philosophy, Goeth rarely listens to input from others, refuses to admit he is wrong for fear of showing weakness and dictates all decisions in the camp–including shooting random prisoners from his Villa balcony for fun.

Recommendations

In the war movies the heroes display different types of leadership ranging from transformational, ethical, and transactional to situational.

Young military leaders can benefit from watching these war films, because it helps in shaping their behaviour in professional roles.

Therefore, leadership educators should include different historic war films in their course curricula.

This film is highly recommended to be included in the list for leadership series.

Titbits.

This movie is often listed among the greatest films ever made. It has won seven Academy Awards (out of twelve nominations), including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Score, as well as numerous other awards (including seven BAFTAs and three Golden Globes). In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked the film 8th on its list of the 100 best American films of all time (American Film Institute, 2007). The Library of Congress (2004) selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Which is your favourite war movie?

For regular updates, please register here

Subscribe

References

Lavella, N. (2013, February 25). Evaluating ethics and leadership in Schindler’s List. http://cronkitehhh.jmc.asu.edu/blog/2013/02/evaluating-ethics-and-leadership-in- schindlers-list/

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.

Meridian: Knowledge Solution. (2016, April 6). Leadership styles of characters from Quentin Tarantino movies. Retrieved on November 27, 2018 from https://www.meridianks.com/leadership-styles-of-characters-from-quentin-tarantino- movies/

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.

August 10, 2021December 27, 2024

167: INTERESTING BYTES

Ironies

Politics divide us, terrorism unite us.

Everyone is in hurry, but no one reaches in time.

Actors earn more money playing sportspersons, than the sportspersons earn in their entire career.

Most people who fight over religious books, have probably never read any of them.

We spend more on our daughter’s wedding than on her education.

The shoes that we wear are sold in air conditioned show rooms, the vegetables that we eat are sold on the footpaths.

Seeing a policeman makes us nervous rather than feeling safe.

In competitive exams, a person writes a brilliant 1500 words essay about how dowry is a social evil and cracks the exam by impressing everyone. One year later his parents demand a dowry in crores, because he is become an officer.

We are obsessed with screen guards on their smartphones even though most come with scratch proof gorilla glass but never bother wearing a helmet while riding bikes.

Artificial lemon flavour is used for “welcome drink” and real lemon is used in “finger bowl”

Funny

– I changed my password to “incorrect” so whenever I forget it the computer will say, “Your password is incorrect.”

– Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

– I’m great at multi-tasking–I can waste time, be unproductive, and procrastinate all at once.

– If you can smile when things go wrong, you have someone in mind to blame.

– Hospitality is the art of making guests feel like they’re at home when you wish they were.

– I bought a vacuum cleaner six months ago and so far all it’s been doing is gathering dust.

– Every time someone comes up with a fool proof solution, along comes a more-talented fool.

– If you keep your feet firmly on the ground, you’ll have trouble putting on your pants.

– A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.

– Ever stop to think and forget to start again?

– There may be no excuse for laziness, but I’m still looking.

– Women spend more time wondering what men are thinking than men spend thinking.

– He who laughs last thinks slowest.

– Is it wrong that only one company makes the game Monopoly?

– Women sometimes make fools of men, but most guys are the do-it-yourself type.

– I was going to give him a nasty look, but he already had one.

– The grass may be greener on the other side but at least you don’t have to mow it…

Low Budget Airlines

For regular updates please register here –

https://55nda.com/blogs/anil-khosla/subscribe/

August 8, 2021December 27, 2024

165: Best of PG Wodehouse

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE was an English author and one of the most widely read humourists of the 20th century. Born in Guildford, the third son of a British magistrate based in Hong Kong, Wodehouse spent happy teenage years at Dulwich College, to which he remained devoted all his life.

He had just about enough intelligence to open his mouth when he wanted to eat, but certainly no more.

At the age of eleven or thereabouts women acquire a poise and an ability to handle difficult situations which a man, if he is lucky, manages to achieve somewhere in the later seventies.

He had the look of one who had drunk the cup of life and found a dead beetle at the bottom.

She looked as if she had been poured into her clothes and had forgotten to say “when”.

I always advise people never to give advice.

A melancholy-looking man, he had the appearance of one who has searched for the leak in life’s gas-pipe with a lighted candle.

It was a confusion of ideas between him and one of the lions he was hunting in Kenya that had caused A. B. Spottsworth to make the obituary column. He thought the lion was dead, and the lion thought it wasn’t.

And she has got brains enough for two, which is exact quantity the girl who marries you will need.

When I see lovers’ names carved on trees, I don’t think it’s sweet. I only wonder how many people bring a knife on a date .

It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.

It was my Uncle George who discovered that alcohol was a food well in advance of modern medical thought.

Memories are like mulligatawny soup in a cheap restaurant. It is best not to stir them.

The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of the gun.

You’re one of those guys who can make a party just by leaving it. It’s a great gift.

Every day you seem to know less and less about more and more.

For regular updates please register here –

https://55nda.com/blogs/anil-khosla/subscribe/