Everything I Know about Leadership, I Learned from the Movies

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
No study of leadership is complete without a lesson in hubris, and no one did hubris quite like the British Empire, particularly in its declining years. The sad consequences of that overweening confidence are chronicled brilliantly by David Lean in films ranging from A Passage to India to The Bridge on the River Kwai. The latter is the story of a British regiment building a strategic railroad bridge for its Japanese captors during World War II.

Hubris, in Kwai, is personified by Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness), the proud but rigid British officer who directs the construction project. Like many great managers, Nicholson exhibits formidable skills of organization and implementation. But like many flawed leaders, he never ponders the ends toward which those skills are applied. Nicholson dives into the project with gusto, marshaling the administrative savoir faire that he and his men have amassed through years of maintaining the British Empire. His whip-cracking management style results in a 30% productivity increase, and the bridge is completed capably and with dispatch. To Nicholson's satisfaction, his men see the humiliation of captivity mitigated by the pride of achievement.

Which is all well and good, but of course the best interests of the British army are not served by helping the enemy improve its supply chain. Obsessed with honor and with the vision of his own legacy, Nicholson never asks the most important question: Am I doing this for myself or for the organization? Execution takes priority over strategy. And when that happens, in business as in war, the results can't help being catastrophic.

Dead Poets Society (1989)
In a dazzling display of verbal midwifery, English professor John Keating extracts a poem of raw power from a student who moments before had professed himself incapable of composing even the most pedestrian verse. The student stands before his applauding classmates, emotionally drained and awestruck at his own achievement, while Keating gazes at him with a look that approaches rapture.

This is the finest moment of Dead Poets Society, the story of a thoroughly unorthodox teacher at a thoroughly orthodox boys' prep school. Keating (Robin Williams at his most Robin Williams–ish) is a larger-than-life motivator who encourages his callow charges to seize the day, question authority, and commit other acts that today seem bumper sticker trite but in this 11-year-old film appear madly risky and fiercely innovative. In this teacher's philosophy, no rule is so entrenched it can't be broken, no box so big it can't be thought out of. With his courageous ideas and manic charisma, Keating inspires extraordinary -- almost cultish -- devotion among his followers. He is the kind of leader who changes young lives.

That said, unequivocably recommending Keating as a role model for executives would be the film critic's version of malpractice. He is clumsy in adult relationships, has no patience with institutional politics, and does nothing to promote loyalty to the organization. Yes, one can easily picture Williams's character leading the charge at a dot-com start-up. But before you could say carpe diem, investors would be demanding a real CEO.

Elizabeth (1998)
Newly minted CEOs who worry that leaders are born, not made, should find the 1998 movie Elizabeth reassuring. The woman responsible for England's golden age starts off with the fierce independence of any company founder, refusing her dying half-sister's demand that she uphold the Catholic faith and declaring that "when I am queen, I promise to act as my conscience dictates." But thrust into a maelstrom of politics and religion, when Elizabeth (Cate Blanchett) does take the throne, she frets, hesitates, and falls back upon the wrongheaded counsel of others.

Defeated in battle and with England's powerful bishops aligned against her, Elizabeth laments that she will never equal her father, Henry VIII, at running the family business. But slowly she grows comfortable in the ruler's skin, learning to win by using the force of her personality rather than the power of her position. (The scene in which the new queen sways a hostile Parliament by combining calls to conscience with sly, self-deprecating humor is a masterpiece of meeting management.) As betrayal is heaped upon betrayal, she becomes a shrewd judge of people, learning to trust only herself and the sole nobleman loyal enough to kill for her.

Elizabeth's decision to renounce romantic love in favor of total devotion to her subjects could resonate with anyone trying to satisfy the demands of a family and a business. Yes, her sacrifice appears extreme. But it's hard to argue with success: Elizabeth ruled for more than 40 years, and at her death England was the most powerful and prosperous country in Europe.

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