The movie “12 Angry Men” tells the story of the murder trial of a boy that is 18 years old and has been charged with stabbing his father to death. The story follows that the jury has to decide unanimously whether the boy should be convicted or acquitted of the charges. The gravity of the matter is that in case the jury arrive at the guilty, then the young man will be given a death penalty. At the start, the members vote and all but one arrive at the guilty verdict. They then go through several arguments before they all arrive at the final verdict that the defendant is not guilty. The process of making the decision is challenging and the movie portrays some of the phases that teams have to go before making a decision. There are also leadership qualities expressed by one of the jurors and this emphasizes the importance of good leadership. The interactions of the jurors show a group moves through various group development stages and the role and characteristics of proper leadership.
Group Development Stages
The characters in the movie go through three major stages that include beginning stages, working phase, and termination phase. The beginning stage occurs when the group is starting to be formed and members appear to familiarize with one another. The movie starts out with the group having been already formed as they had been previously selected to become part of the jury. The initial conversations at the beginning stages can tend to be superficial and do not add to the goals and objectives of the group. At the beginning, the jury members also define the obligation and goals. They establish that their goal is to find out whether the defendant is guilty and that would involve giving him a death penalty by the electric chair.
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The next stage of the group development is the working phase and it involves members voting and making a unanimous decision. The working phase begins with the first round of voting and juror 8 is the only one who votes that he is not guilty. Discussions also begin at this stage as the juror 8 makes his point regarding why he thinks the boy is not guilty. Throughout this process, one juror after another realizes that they could have made the wrong decision by possibly convicting an innocent person to death. They explore all the facts to the detail so as to provide a fair verdict. The juror members thus come together and put forth their knowledge, experiences, and opinions to help each arrive at the not guilty verdict. For instance, the instance when Juror 9 notices that Juror 4 is rubbing his nose and he thus makes the argument that one of the witnesses was not using her glasses regularly, assists all members to reason critically about the validity of the witness.
The final stage is the termination stage and it involves the group members disbanding and evaluating their performance. The termination involves the disbanding of the group after they have arrived at the not guilty verdict. The movie does not provide adequate details about the termination stage. However, there are symbolic behaviors that indicate that the group has unanimously reached the final verdict such as one of the jurors putting his coat and laying a hand of comfort on the shoulder of another juror. The final scene also involves two members introducing themselves as they wait for the elevator. The incident shows that the group members shared a powerful experience in the discussions that led to the final verdict.
Group Leadership Roles
The person that acted as the leader of the group was juror 8 who also went by the name Mr. Davis. He played a critical role in ensuring that the jurors arrived at the correct decision. He did this through guiding others, challenging the status quo respectfully, and giving time to important decisions. Mr. Davis guided the other members of the group towards arriving at the not guilty verdict. For instance, he was able to guide and convince juror 9, an old man, that there was a doubt in one of the witnesses who as an elderly gentleman like him. He guided juror 9 and made him understand that there could be flaws in the evidence and the witnesses and thus gained another follower. Mr. Davis understood that he could not impose his views on others. He does not try to force anyone into voting ‘not guilty’ at any point in time. This is a sign of good leadership as it involves trying to get one’s views to be accepted by others through subtle techniques and not pushing others.
Another role that the leader played in the movie was challenging the status quo. Mr. Davis was willing to stand out when making the first vote of ‘not guilty’. He placed himself in a position where he was one against the eleven and had to convince other jurors into a dialogue even though they had strong objections about this. He shows that leaders are not expected to be like a sheep that blindly follows others. Instead, one should be ready to put their views even when they fear being ridiculed or rejected. Even as Mr. Davis challenged the status quo, he did so with respect. Throughout the process, he does not indicate at any one point that he was right and other people were wrong. Instead, he shows respectful listening and sincere consideration. By continuing to be sincere and respectful, he convinces other members to take a similar stand.
It was also established that one of the role of a leader is to give time to important decisions. The character of Mr. Davis chose not to easily select the guilty verdict because he understood that it was an important decision and the life of an innocent boy was at stake. Some of the jurors mentions that they should wrap up the debate since he has a base-ball game to watch and another wanted to have fun as he discusses irrelevant topics. However, juror Mr. Davis objects to this by stating that “We’re not convinced. We want to hear them again. We have as much time as it takes” (“12 Angry Men”, 1957). Mr. Davis shows that the decision at hand was important and it did not matter if they took their time so as to make the right decision.
Conclusion
The movie provided several lessons regarding the process of leadership and social interactions. One of the important factors I learned about group counseling was how to maintain social interactions to ensure that others listen to you. Mr. Davis was also calm, focused, and respectful. When interacting with anyone, it is easy for one to lose their temper like other jurors. However, the ability to continually show respect when interacting with others is a strong leadership trait. I thus learned about the importance of sincere consideration and respectful listening so as to influence other people.
I also learned about the importance of giving time to make decisions and not simply directing others. Mr. Davis made use of a laissez-fair style of leadership where he only brought inconsistent points and did not direct any individual towards the not guilty verdict. When directing the group, he made use of subtle techniques to convince other jurors. He only laid out his points that was used to raise further discussions. This was identified as an important group counseling dynamic where one should not try to impose their ideas on others. Instead, one can simply present inconsistencies in the arguments and let other people make the decisions by themselves.
Reference
“ 12 Angry Men”. (1957). Retrieved from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050083/
