Leadership theory followed in 12 Angry Men

Basically 12 angry men is about the boy who is accused of murder of his own father. Since it
was a heinous crime the judge wanted unanimous decision from jurors by keeping in mind
all the evidences whether the boy was guilty or innocent. There were 12 jurors was there in
the jury and they all showed leadership traits during whole discussion. I will focus on all the
juror one by one and try to explain the leadership qualities exhibited by them.
There were two different types of leaders-
1. Foreman leader or designation leader
2. Emerged leader
Juror #1 was Designated leader and he started with Democratic style of leadership where
he reiterated the judge statement and explain the process that they are going to follow until
they reach final conclusion. They start with the voting and if the decision is not unanimous,
they will discuss and give every juror fair opportunity to put forward their opinion about the
case and after discussion they will further vote. Hell was very calm and relaxed, no having
much interaction with somewhat uncontrollable group. He did not just jump on the
conclusion. He also seeks for their explanation for why juror voted for the guilty.
Juror #8 was the most important emergent leader. He was the one who voted for not guilty
in the beginning and end up with not guilty decision. The leadership quality he exhibited
was of laissez-faire style of leadership. Even though we made some inconsistent comment
in the beginning but those comment leaded other juror to vote not guilty in the end. The
interesting part was he did not try to convince other juror but encouraged them to develop
the thinking to critically analyze the situation and attention to detail. He remains calm and
composed even after strongest statement were made against a lot of aggression shown by
other jurors.
Risk taker, Juror did not afraid to take risk when by reading emotions of fellow juror, and it
was necessary for him to start a process where other also participate in engaging discussion,
even though he was confident being alone as well but according to situation he had to take
risk. It was a big step and he made announcement he will vote for majority if the voting
equation remains same this time as well. It could he gone other way around as well.
Other emerging leader came up from the juror as discussion goes on when they start
analyzing the testimony of witness and even enacted the situation in the jury room. In this
process the life experience and their capability came up which pushed them further in the
discussion.
Transformational leadership- its been quite evident that all the 12 jurors were from
different background and occupation. They had their biases and preconceived notion about
the case and accused boy. They are also not much interested in having discussion and
wanted to finish this discussion as soon as possible as they had some or other important
work to in their home. They were not much concern about the life of 18-years old boy. It
was big concern for juror #8 to even start conversation as some of them were bit aggressive
and some of them were bit hesitate to make point or say some thing some of them were
very much controlled by their biases and preconceived notion about the boy’s society and
neighbors. Juror showed transformational leadership but having logical conversation he
was very compassionate and took very high regards. It was very difficult to him to change
their opinion and raise reasonable doubt in their mind to found the boy guilty or innocent.
He was very confident and was able to convey ideas to others as well.
Situational leadership- Juror #6 had not showed any natural leadership traits but on
occasions he also showed some leadership qualities. Whenever he found anyone is being
rational or making logical statement, he also took stand for other jurors.

Insight/Learning from 12 Angry Men: -

Here are the insights we got after watching and discussion of the movie.

 Important decision should be given time.

 Maintain composer, clarity and focus.
 Change the strategy of discussion according to the situation- creating moments
 Empathizing- to understand the gravity of situation put him/herself in that position.
 Choose the right way instead of easy way.
 Way of speaking or tone matters a lot.
 Always have different perspective to better understanding.
 Don’t force your decision instead try to use subtle techniques to nudge others.
 Start with small talks like “we can talk” instead of big requests like “I not going to
change my decision”.
 To gain credibility, prepared well before or do your homework in advance.
 Socially isolate the person who are showing negative emotions.
 Effective leaders always encourage other participants to participate equally.
 Diversity with experience in management is key to quality decisions.
 Group must stay together work trough its differences you can’t avoid responsibility.
 Do not forget to celebrate your success with your followers.