(The Bridge on the River Kwai)
In this week’s movie, we watched The Bridge on the River Kwai. This movie portrays fictional events created around the construction of the Burma Railway during World War II. The story involves British troops captured and imprisoned in a Japanese camp. The Japanese commander in the camp, Colonel Saito, was determined to utilize all the British prisoners to construct a bridge to carry a railway line to invade Burma. On the other hand, the commander of the captured British troops, Lt Colonel Nicholson, raised a concern that the Geneva Convention, which governs war practices, prohibits the use of officers for manual labor. Saito totally disregarded the provisions of the Geneva Convention by putting the officers to work, and punishing Nicholson for challenging his authority. Colonel Saito was put under a lot of pressure to complete the project before the due date by his commanders. The British soldiers responded by sabotaging the construction, which compelled Saito to end Nicholson’s punishment to enable him lead the construction. A prisoner from the camp named Shears, who was disguised as a US navy commander, was able to escape from the time in the beginning of construction. Some of the key issues discussed in class last week, read from the book (Servant Leadership) and linked to the movie are highlighted as follows. First, taking into consideration the concept of bad leadership, which is a major obstacle to accomplishing team goals. Bad Leadership types such as rigid, incompetent, intemperate, callous, and corrupt were explained with appropriate examples. In addition, the qualities of bad leaderships were listed as deficiencies in vision, integrity, performance, curiosity, passion, communication, humility, empathy, flexibility, focus, perspective etc. Saito and Nicholson, who were leaders of their respective troops, exhibited some of these qualities in the movie. From the movie, the types of bad leadership listed earlier can be observed with Saito. For instance, consider his command that the British officers must take part in manual labor despite the requirements of the Geneva Convention. This is clearly rigid leadership, which involves stiffness and unyielding behavior. Saito could also be termed an incompetent leader due to his lack of skill for military conduct and inability to successfully lead the construction of the bridge. The scene where he was attempted to have the dissident British prisoners gunned down shows Intemperate and Callous leadership. These bad leadership types were exacerbated with earlier mentioned qualities. For instance, the lack of passion and performance made Saito an incompetent leader. Similarly, lack of flexibility caused rigid leadership, while a lack of empathy and humility made the Japanese commander appear intemperate and heartless. Just like Saito, Nicholson displayed a certain level of bad leadership. He displayed empathy for his men and thus was not a callous leader like Saito. Also, he showed he was not an intemperate leader by exhibiting self-control even when he was threatened with death. The primary observable flaw with Nicholson was that he was a rigid leader. He was very unyielding to the ideas of others. For example, he shunned suggestion from Commander Shears to set up an escape plan and also the destruction of the bridge by the rescue commandoes.

Personally, the movie made me reflect on a situation where I encountered bad leadership. It was during my High School days where the institution was lead by a Principal with questionable ethics. Just like Saito, my principal callous and intemperate about policies that affected students. He once flared up when the parents and teachers association contested the increase of academic fees. It was apparent that he lacked vision for the school and was removed by the school board before the expiration of his tenor due to incompetence. Under his watch, comparative performances in academics and sports declined considerably. There was also allegation of corruption within his administration.