Various aspects of leadership and group dynamics are evident in the movie 12 Angry Men . In this film, twelve members of the jury are faced with an open-and-shut case involving a capital murder case where a teenager is on trial for allegedly killing his father. The jurors are required to find out whether there is reasonable doubt, and whichever the case, they have to come up with a unanimous decision of guilty or not guilty. Notably, leadership plays a critical role in the process of coming up with a unanimous decision. The life of the teenager was at stake since a guilty verdict meant a certain death sentence.
One of the most important roles of leadership is maintaining the focus towards the goal, which is to arrive at a decision (Godwyn & Gittell, 2012). Some jurors tended to deviate from the main issue from time to time including getting into personal conflicts and so leadership would realign them to the matter at hand. Another role of leadership is influencing others, which is the most crucial feature of leadership (Bryant, 2007). Rational persuasion through the presentation of facts and logical arguments is one aspect that is evident in this movie in the process of influencing others of a different opinion. The other role involves motivating the members to pursue the clear goal set before them. The jurors are of different values, social status, and backgrounds, which means the possibility of them appealing to self-interests were high. Leadership helped harmonize views through convincing rational argument. In this regard, various types of leadership can also be drawn from the movie.
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The first style is team leadership. A team comprising twelve members of the jury is set up for the purpose of achieving a specific goal. The task is supposed to be solved through cooperation and exchange of different opinions for an efficient outcome. The team begins with a transactional type of leadership with laissez-faire aspects where even though there is an environment for numerous decision-making opportunities, the pro-guilty jurors appeal to their self-interests and try to ‘tell’ others. In contrast, Juror 8 displays transformational leadership. This type of leadership is about inspiring and motivating followers with an emotional appeal and a convincing influence (Godwyn & Gittell, 2012). Because the case Jurors were tasked with deciding the fate of the suspect’s life, Juror 8 was able to derive an emotional appeal and consequently led the rest of the members into doubting their initial convictions. Through motivation and inspiring arguments, the rest of the members were able to comprehend their limitations especially with the realization that the case did not have sufficient evidence, and none of them was in the room when the victim was stabbed. This is the most important fair-mindedness Juror 8 was after. Most importantly, democratic leadership helped the team to brainstorm and participate in the process. This leadership was displayed in the movie by the constant requests of jurors’ input with the assumption that no one had perfect information. At the same time, some jurors were quick to point out that some colleagues were silent, and so giving them a chance to speak and voice their opinions was necessary.
The identity of the group was crucial in this case. Social support was primarily the key reinforcing factor. This was evident in times of conflict when some members of the jury would intervene to bring the situation to a calm while reminding the conflicting parties that it was not about them but the life that was at stake. In addition, the recognition of similar interests (such as those who smoked cigarettes) among other similarities in personal values that came out of the interactions during breaks helped reinforce group identity. From the leader’s side, calling for consecutive voting after consultations was necessary to reinforce the group's decisions. This process was particularly effective as newly-decamped jurors to the not-guilty vote would stand to explain the reasons behind their change of stand thereby bringing out new logical arguments, which were crucial for the direction of the case.
Conflict is inevitable in social groups (Forsyth, 2014). It is how groups resolve conflicts that makes them healthy or unhealthy. The jury resolved numerous conflicts in the process of making a unanimous decision. Most of these conflicts emanated from personal differences, personalities, values, and the way each party understood the other. The group handled conflicts effectively through physically intervening, calming down irate jurors, and calling for time off to ease the tension. As a team, the leader enabled parties to find common ground by asking the conflicting parties questions that concerned their differences. These conflicts can be said to be constructive. It is from these differences that members of the jury discovered their own ignorance or arrogance and understood their limitations regarding the information they had about the circumstances surrounding the murder of the victim. That is, the conflicts made the jurors realize that they were not in a position to answer all the questions and when they were resolved, they helped the members to connect on a more personal level. By resolving conflicts and making people feel more at ease, a group can make a reasonable progress (Wilson, 2005).
Throughout the process, there are several ‘sidebar’ conversations, especially in pairs. Such conversations are important for the group in its pursuit of goals because members are not only able to reach out to disengaged colleagues, but also to understand them on a personal level. Since the whole group could not follow up on a particular discontented individual, a ‘friendly’ member would be useful in ‘winning’ another by either encouraging or convincing them by communicating on a personal level. These conversations were healthy because they leaned towards promoting the mandate of the group. The conversations affected the groups positively because they made some jurors to shift from their initial assumptions and the vote progressively went to ‘not guilty’ verdict.
The leader of the group played a critical role in ensuring the members are focused on the goal. For example, he would remind conflicting jurors to drop personal differences and focus on what brought them to the discussion table. In addition, the leader calls for a vote after some time, which does not only gauge the progress of the group towards a unanimous decision, but also keep the members from somewhat irrelevant conversations. As a leader, reminding the members of the goal is important because it informs all other communications and interactions with respect to the time available (Bryant, 2007). The clarity of goals is what helps members to put effort into their individual roles (Friedkin & Johnsen, 2011). In this case, it was necessary for the jurors to have a clear purpose to make sure the group’s activities and communications were aligned with the goal.
References
Bryant, C. (2007). 21st century sociology . Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Forsyth, D. (2014). Group dynamics . Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Friedkin, N. & Johnsen, E. (2011). Social influence network theory: a sociological examination of small group dynamics. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Godwyn, M., & Gittell, J. (2012). Sociology of organizations . Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press.
Wilson, G. (2005). Groups in context . Boston, MA.: McGraw-Hill.
