The Glory - the Relationships among the Dramatic Personae - Movie Review Example

Glory Running head: Glory THE GLORY THAT WAS "GLORY" Glory 2 Abstract The 1989 film Glory was undoubtedly a feast for the eyes for which it won 3 OSCAR awards. But it also featured a study of leadership among its cast of characters. The 54th Massachusetts regiment was conceptualized as an all-black Union infantry tasked to fight the Confederates in the American Civil War. Col. Shaw who recruited, trained and led it was faced with leadership problems ranging from obtaining the necessary equipment to resistance of his leadership from many of its members. He first applied transactional leadership based on discipline but with the help of Sgt. Rawlins revised his style to transformational leadership, which was effective in producing the necessary attainment of the group's mission and goals. Introduction There had been a slew of films about the American Civil War but the movie "Glory" stood out because it was unique and because it not only focused its energies on bombings, hand to hand combats and killings but it featured the African American people's aspirations to prove its self-worth, courage and dignity under fire and under pressures of racial prejudice and honor amidst the backdrop of a bitter divisive war between the northern Union states and the southern Confederate states. Moreover, the film illustrates the anatomy of leadership as a young colonel was given the daunting task of recruiting, training and leading an all-black regiment, which was the first such black regiment to fight under the American flag, many of whom were older than he was and most of whom were embittered by the demeaning experiences they had under the white men. This film showed that heroism knows no color and its significance was that after the 54th Massachusetts regiment showed to all and sundry their heart-wrenching guts and heroism, President Lincoln conscripted more of such black regiments, assigning them challenging roles in a number of major battles. The 54th regiment was the start of black power in military warfare. It explained why blacks were worthy of being endowed with citizenships to the United States. The Relationships Among the Dramatis Personae Bonding within an infantry led by young white officers and composed of colored men, Glory 3 majority of whom had experienced indignities, brutalities and acts of inhumanity as former slaves from white men, was almost an unattainable situation. Leadership was even an impossible dream. But the regiment had to be formed as ordered by abolitionist Massachusetts governor John Andrew (Blatt et al,2000,p.19) and in its formation, everything had to start with an effective leadership or else the infantry will only be in a state of disarray and disintegration. It was incumbent upon Col.Robert Gould Shaw portrayed by Matthew Broderick to alter the relationship which started from distrust, aversion, contempt, bigotry and even hatred. He had to turn things around to make the regiment functional. This had to be accomplished without the needed boost and support from the command force and worse, from a flip-flopping stance of the command higher-ups who even issued absurd orders designed to make the regiment a nonentity. This was due to the belief that blacks had no capacity to fight and that they would merely incite the border States to defect from the Union. There was lack of accouterments, unequal pay and financial assistance which only made leadership difficult to be attained. But Col. Shaw, in his naivety, forced the issue of leadership by himself becoming harsh. He advocated discipline consisting of corporal and psychological abuse as the potent way to make the soldiers learn to fight. This only managed to widen the chasm of distrust and enmity. Private Tripp, powerfully essayed by Denzel Washington, defiantly made no bones of his revulsion to such flogging which Glory 4 made no distinction between the behavior of his regiment officers and his former slaveholder. He also renounced white leadership. It was Sgt. Rawlins, portrayed by Morgan Freeman, the spiritual guru of the group, who showed Col. Shaw what true leadership was all about. He taught Shaw that there would be no effective leadership if trust and respect would not be earned and obtained from the ones led. He himself displayed fortitude and leadership by showing to all that inner strength comes from restraint, humility and the ability to lead others by example not to mention the fact that he served as the group's teacher, controller, motivator and even disciplinarian. Meantime, Shaw and his longtime friend and his second in command, Major Forbes, depicted by Cary Elwes as well as Cpl. Searles (Andre Braugher) were at loggerheads on the issue of style of leadership. While Col. Shaw called for corporal punishment, Major Forbes and Cpl. Searles were against it. Shaw himself found it difficult to subjugate under his command and protect Thomas Searles, his old school pal, because the latter was clearly not ready for the tough military life. With Rawlins guiding Shaw, he was able to rise up from his immaturity and alter his style of leadership. After releasing the needed shoes and uniforms for his regiment, Shaw joined his men in refusing to accept the pay and in effect denounced the government's inequality of payment between the white and the black soldiers and its bigotry. In this scene, Tripp showed his leadership by goading his fellow soldiers to tear up their pay checks. Slowly, Shaw proved that he was first and foremost a leader of the 54th regiment, willing to fight for their Glory 5 welfare and going with them through thick and thin. This was a departure from the punitive and disciplinarian style of leadership he once had. When the regiment was ordered to make a suicide attack on Fort Wagner, the fort outside Charleston, South Carolina, Shaw in an example of blind loyalty led the suicide surge which resulted to his death proving to his men that he is a leader even to death. This scene also showed that the 'softie' Searles also possessed leadership qualities by taking over the flag and rushing headlong to his death. At this juncture, Tripp fully accepted Shaw's leadership, took the flag and also surged to his death. Thus, both Tripp and Searles fit perfectly into the leadership picture. Both Shaw and Tripp in the end were united in the gravesite, one on top of each other, one Black and the other White. The Quality of Leadership One facet of life examined in the film Glory was the quality of leadership evinced by the characters in the movie particularly Shaw and Rawlins'. Shaw's quality of leadership at the outset was transactional. Idealistic, immature and impulsive, he was taught that the way to lead is through discipline. There cannot be any other way. But problems, within and without of his regiment taught him that he needed to metamorphose and revise his style of leadership. With the help of Rawlins, he realized that it was strength of character that can earn the respect of his men and which can ultimately lead to effective leadership. By making sound decisions, putting the welfare and well-being of his men ahead of his personal needs, making personal sacrifices, practicing humility, motivating the men and never losing their sight to the goals, mission and Glory 6 cause and by leading by example, Shaw realized that these were the means to obtain his men's trust. Shaw was always careful not to breach this trust. Shaw's style of leadership was at the outset basically transactional. He had set goals and mission to be accomplished and set contingent rewards in the form of paychecks to motivate the men. Thus he bitterly fought for justice and equality in the payment of such paychecks. As trainer of the men, he was stern and even brutal, always monitoring the progress of the training and was sensitive to deviations from rules of conduct and was swift in taking corrective action such as the whipping of Tripp for alleged AWOL. This is what is termed as "active management by exception" (Vasu et al,1998,p.111). He was at the start, not at all concerned with personal development of the men, the stimulation of their intellect, the encouragement of creativity and self-management and leadership, the changes in their perception and their psychological needs and motivations which all are the requisites for transformational leadership (Marriner-Tomey,2004,p.175). This instead was the kind of leadership that Rawlins provided. Rawlins was an effective mentor, motivator, stimulator and developer of personalities and character. He advised people on the right mode of action, the importance of restraint and humility, stopped scenario where it could only result to unnecessary bloodbath and even slapped Tripp to stop him from his impulsive and irrational behavior. Because of these he deserved his leadership position. Because the transactional leadership that Shaw evinced brought more rancor and enmity between him and his men more particularly with Trip and because Shaw was guided by Rawlins to the Glory 7 right direction, Shaw altered his kind of leadership. Shaw's maturation brought about by the bitter conditions of the war as well as racial prejudice led to a change in his perspectives. He began to elevate the interests of the group. He soon motivated each to go beyond their self-interests and fight to prove that the black race was a valiant race worthy of being called American. He presented himself as an exemplary, charismatic leader with character, passionate to the group's cause and willing to sacrifice and shed his blood for the group's sake. Because of these he brought about inspiration, loyalty and emulation from everybody. And thus when the time to charge headlong to the pit of death called Fort Wagner, all of the men in the infantry followed Shaw unflinchingly and without question. By this time, his transformational leadership was pervasive within the whole regiment. Of course, the outcome was disastrous as almost half perished and the rest were either wounded or captured. This showed the power of transformational leadership. Conclusion Transactional leadership is always necessary to organize any entity. Here, the leader explains what are the requirements and specifies the conditions and rewards that they will receive "if they fulfill those requirements" (Bass & Riggio, 2006,p.4). But in order to attain the mission and objectives of the group, transformational leadership is needed. Here, the leader motivates his members "to do more than what is originally intended" and achieve the goals that he himself had set. In the movie Glory, Col. Shaw utilized transactional leadership at the outset and then upgraded his style of leadership to transformational to achieve the mission of the group, which was to prove to all that blacks were valiant fighters, ready to sacrifice their lives for the American cause and thus worthy of being deemed Americans in the true sense of the word. BIOGRAPHY Bass, B.,& Riggio, R. (2006). Transformational leadership. Routledge. Blatt, M.H., Brown, T.J., & Yacovone, D. (2000). Hope and glory . University of Massachusetts Press. Marriner-Tomey, A. (2004). Guide to nursing management and leadership. Elsevier Health Sciences. Vasu, M., Stewart, D., & Garson, D. ( 1998). Organizational behavior and public management. CRC Press. Read More