Crimson Tide Movie- Conflict of Leadership Theories

Defining leadership is difficult. One size fits all approach in leadership is in effective as the elements involved are both internal and external on which most of the leaders find difficult to control. Leadership is an art as much as it’s a science. I am posting this long post to distinguish the behavior of 2 defined leadership theories when in crisis.

Crimson Tide is a captivating movie set in the backdrop of an eminent nuclear crisis between nations and a drama that unravels on board a US nuclear submarine. An intense movie played by Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington, I observed a conflict of leadership theories. This movie by far being a thriller is a text book on leadership. The traits, of the theory, as exhibited by the characters are discussed in this post.

The leadership theories discussed are:

1. Situational Leadership and
2. Contingency Leadership

What is Situational & Contingency Theories?

There have been efforts to classify leadership in various ways forms like Behavioral, Classical, Situational, Contingency, Contemporary etc. Even though Classical, Behavioral and other forms of leadership can be differentiated, there has been no clear demarcation between Situation and Contingency theories. On the retrospect, a closer analysis of these theories, there are commonalities the main one being extension of behavioral group of leadership models. Furthermore the Situational and Contingency theories focuses on the various *situations* which leaders may find themselves in.

Situational: This theory focuses on the use of a leader’s personal skills and natural ability to lead in a situation. A relationship is shared between the leader and the follower based on 4 individual styles. The theory states that instead of using just one style, successful leadersshould change their leadership styles based on the maturity of the people they're leading and the details of the task. The words “should change” highlights an important facet of this theory which is “Being Flexible”

The simple matrix below shows the leadership style against the maturity of the follower involved.

(Ref: The Hersey and Blanchard‟ Situational Leadership Theory”)

Contingency: Amongst the various contingency (dependent) theories, I am referring to the Fred Fiedler's contingency model. This model contains the relationship between leadership style and the favorable-ness of the situation. Situational favorable-ness was described in terms of three empirically derived dimensions:

1. Leader-Member relationship
2. Task-Structure
3. Leader-Position (Position-Power)

Situations are favorable to the leader if all three of these dimensions are high. The table below simplifies the contingency model.

Ref:http://jasonmatthews.hubpages.com/hub/Leadership-Theories-Three-Types-of-Contingency-and-Situational-Theories

The table above shows how these three variables can interact to form eight different possible situations (also known as octants) and which leadership styles are best for each situation. Unlike other contingency theories, Fielder's approach believes that leaders, by-and-large, have a set leadership style. In other words, if a leader is task oriented, he or she will always be task-oriented and cannot quickly change styles to adapt to a changing situation. This means in this model of leadership styles are “Relatively Inflexible”

Crimson Tide-Analysis of the characters and leadership theory exhibited:
Capt. Ramsey was among the very few commanders remaining in the Navy with experience in combat. Capt. Ramsey did not have an active family life. The leadership theory I saw from the behavior of the character as Contingency with primary focus on Task and not Relationship.

Lt. Commander Ron Hunter-Highly educated family man but no combat experience. He is working for the first time, as an Executive office, with Capt. Ramsey. Believes in Situational Leadership

Initial Interactions: The initial interaction had the nuances of 2 distinct styles of leaderships. From conversations starting at the 23 minute of the movie between the CO with XO the difference of opinion and body language is evident. Capt. Ramsey was task oriented and implied he found his new XO as indecisive.

As the crisis sets in the submarine the difference of opinions emerge. The CO being a task oriented leader is now trending in the 5, 6, 7 octants in the Eight Octant Continuum shared above.

Ramsey’s Approach:

Hunters Approach:

At extreme crisis situation: When the crisis is at the extreme, the actions of the gentlemen involved are as under. The XO demonstrates the flexibility of leadership which is consistent with Situational Leadership. His belief is applied:

Capt. Ramsey demonstrates his Task Motivated Leadership in a context which required Relationship orientation.

Summary: At the end of the movie, the decision of Lt. Commander Hunter was right and Capt. Ramsey’s was wrong. However as I conclude this post, I am faced with a dilemma on who’s leadership approach was correct in the crisis depicted in Crimson Tide. In Leadership there is nothing right or wrong. Lt.Commander Hunter is into relationship motivated approach with his subordinates. Capt.Ramsey with his task orientated approach finds himself in the wrong situation as per the contingency theory. In the final stages, where in Leader-Member relation was poor, with Task and Power high, a Relationship Motivated leader was the need.

I trust in relationship motivated leadership and the approach of Lt. Commander Hunter is my choice. Open for discussions!

Source: Secondary research from online resources and offline readings.Also,watching the movie couple of times!Disclaimer:Crimson Tide Movie and the clips of the movie showed belong to the copyright holdersSources of images other than the movie clips are given under the images & belong to the copyright holdersOpinions and thoughts are strictly personal