THE GREAT ESCAPE
The great escape is a movie directed by John Sturges on 20th June 1963 in London. It is about the encounters during WWII, where a massive group of imprisoned allied troops broke out of the axis prison caps. It was shot by Panavision and is based on Paul Brickhill’s book of 1950. The prison was a German POW camp Luft III in Sagan, the province of Lower Silesia. This film has extensive leadership skills expressed in it, especially in the coordination of the escape from the soldiers and the response leadership by the Nazi troops. This discussion focuses on the elements of leadership that are brought out from the movie The Great Escape” by Alan Burgess.
The three main characters presented in the movie are USAAF Virgil Hits and Scottish RAF Flying Officer Archibald. They planned to escape through the tunnels with a total of 250 men to add the manpower to their troops. At that time, Luftwaffe Colonel on Luger was the supervisor of the prison. These individuals had distinct styles of leadership. There was Rodger Bartlett a British commander also in the prison
Hilts were a visionary leader who figured out possibilities and utilized it. He was a risk-taker that always cared for the safety of his followers. His style of leadership was based on influential and inspirational to his followers. In this case, he worked in a team with other leaders and ensured that his followers followed the same trend (Hodgens, 963, 61). For instance, in the scene, Hilts and Ives escaped for the second time in vain, especially when he was released from the cooler and was asked to avoid by Bartlett. Hilt refused to ensure that he came up with a plan that would not jeopardize the rest and his life again. Hilts’s ability to sense danger before it happens and protect the lives of his followers during the flight becomes one of the aspects that capture the attention of his audience. He was determined to protect everyone and was willing to take a risk on behalf of the rest of it is the analysis and was accurate. Since he valued the lives of everyone, he decided to postpone the escape to achieve a good plan
Bartlett, on the other hand, was a dictatorial leader. In this case, he ordered his followers to do things that would lead to them taking significant risks while he remains on the safe side. In the scene where he ordered Dick and Tom to seal off the tunnel after the escape to bar them from being caught, came with complications that might have led to the duo dying due to the confrontation by the enemies. Bartlett also orders the escapees to go ahead regardless of the rusk that was looking forward. At this point, his leadership style was appropriate and helped to solve the situations that were needed at the time. Bartlett was faced with an ethical dilemma of whether to leave everyone in the person in fear of losing their lives or risk the lives of some individuals to get the rest out.
Reference
Hodgens, R.M., 1963. The Great Escape.