Everything I Know about Leadersip, I Learned from the Movies

Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)
Business leaders wishing to nurture happy, motivated, successful employees need look no further than the film version of David Mamet's play Glengarry Glen Ross. The trick is to carefully study the words and actions of the managers portrayed here and then do the exact opposite.

A bitter, cynical, and ultimately tragic take on American business, this is the story of a handful of real estate salesmen struggling to salvage their jobs and some shreds of dignity in an organization bent on their humiliation. The company's owners -- the universally loathed Mitch and Murray -- callously set these men up to fail by hoarding choice new prospects until the "losers" who work for them prove their mettle by closing leads already proven worthless.

Significantly, Mitch and Murray never show their faces in the dreary office where most of the action takes place. Instead they send a well-coiffed barracuda (Alec Baldwin), who berates the already demoralized employees in a speech of extraordinary viciousness. "You see this watch?" he asks one salesman. "That watch costs more than your car. I made $970,000 last year. That's who I am. And you're nothing."

Not content to demolish morale and organizational loyalty, the owners' mouthpiece then lays waste to teamwork and collegiality by announcing a sales contest. First prize is a Cadillac El Dorado. Second prize is a set of steak knives. "Third prize is you're fired." That announcement sends the salesmen into a spiral of despair, deception, and crime. By movie's end Mitch and Murray have been robbed and the new leads sold to a competitor. They're getting off light.

Glengarry Glen Ross is a warning for company owners who treat sales staff like a different species, deserving of extra strokes when they produce and extra kicks when they don't. Sometimes your best people are the most fragile when times get rough. If you can't manage to challenge without threatening and motivate without intimidating, you'll lose 'em all.

It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
Beneath all its Currier & Ives iconography -- the Christmas tree, the skating pond, the dance in the high school gym -- the Yuletide perennial It's a Wonderful Life is a tribute to principles-based management. George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart at his good-man-with-dark-underbelly best) epitomizes the socially conscious entrepreneur. He keeps his savings and loan company alive during the depression by reaching out to the tired, poor, and huddled masses spurned by his fat-cat competitor. No matter how big the business gets -- and it never gets very big -- you sense that he'll always treat employees with consideration and respect and always address every customer by name. So humble is this company owner that he rolls up his own sleeves when it's time to help those customers move into their new homes.

George's it's-all-about-the-people philosophy is the diametric opposite of the it's-all-about-the-job approach (see Twelve O'Clock High, below), and real business owners might debate which is worse -- being fiscally irresponsible or being ungenerous. But in director Frank Capra's reap-what-you-sow universe, George's community outreach is amply rewarded when the community reaches back to rescue his imperiled business. It's the ultimate gesture of customer loyalty, accepted without embarrassment because it is so well deserved.

Norma Rae (1979)
Sally Field will be remembered for two moments: her speech ("You like me!") in front of millions of television viewers during the 1980 Academy Awards ceremony, and her silence in front of several hundred textile workers in Norma Rae. The latter performance is the worthier legacy.

Resisting expulsion from the mill where she and her family have worked all their lives, Field's character scrawls the word union on a board and scrambles onto a table. For almost three minutes she stands there -- scared but resolute, holding her declaration aloft -- while one by one the workers switch off their machines, reducing the factory floor to silence. It may be the most powerful act of wordless suasion in film: testimony to the fact that in leadership, oratory isn't everything.

The mill workers don't respond to Norma Rae because she, personally, inspires them. They know her and her flaws -- a quick temper, a dicey sexual past -- too well for that. But as Norma gains the courage of conviction, she comes to embody her cause. Her transformation from passive follower to rebel-within-bounds to go-for-broke torchbearer is catalyzed by Reuben Warshofsky, a New York City labor organizer who recognizes Norma's latent abilities. An effective leader in his own right, Reuben has a playful, hectoring, and intellectually engaging relationship with Norma that is mentoring at its best.

Norma Rae never denies who she is. But she won't let it matter. Thus she commands the allegiance of the downtrodden workers while always remaining one of them. Norma Rae demonstrates that you don't have to be better than the people that you lead. You don't even have to believe in yourself. As long as you believe passionately in what you are doing, others will follow.

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