Front Range Leadership
Developing Leadership Skills
What can we learn about leadership from the movies?
Many films present provocative and sometimes inspiring views of leadership. The models are often deeply flawed (it is drama, afterall) but sometimes insightful and incredibly useful for creating dialogue.
To generate a deep conversation about leadership, or just to reflect on what leadership means to you and how you operate as a leader in comparison, try any of the following movies and then creating a dialogue with the reflection questions that follow:
A Beautiful Mind
Airforce One
Apollo 13
The Apostle
Batman Begins
Bridge On The River Kwai
Chariots of Fire
Charlie Wilson's War
Citizen Kane
The Color Purple
Crimson Tide
Courage Under Fire (recommended by Ty D. Ried, MBA, Business Instructor at International Business College)
The Dark Knight
Dead Poets Society
The Deal
The Doctor
Dr. Strangelove
Drumline
Erin Brockovich
Fail Safe
Field of Dreams
Gandhi
Gettysburg (1993): Early in the film, Union General Buford makes very difficult leadership decisions to hold Gettysburg until the rest of the army can come up. Later in the film, Col. Joshua Chamberlain exercises leadership while in life threatening crisis and under extreme pressure as he fulfills his responsiblity to hold Little Round Top. (suggested and summarized by Leonard Cizewski see also here)
Glengarry Glen Ross
Glory
Goodbye, Mr. Chips
Henry V.
Hoosiers
I Heart Huckabees
Invictus: In what may be one of the greatest displays of leadership in all of history, Nelson Mandela uses sports to help bring South Africa back from the brink of civil war and to promote healing and reconciliation in a badly divided nation. (suggested and summarized by Leonard Cizewski on twitter)
It's A Wonderful Life
Jerry Maguire
Karate Kid
The Kingdom
Ladder 49
The Man In The Gray Flannel Suit
The Manchurian Candidate
Master and Commander
Mr. Holland's Opus
My Fair Lady
Norma Rae
October Sky
Office Space
Patch Adams
Phenomenon
The Pursuit of Happyness
Pygmalian
The Quick and The Dead: On the surface, this seems to be just a shoot-em-up western. Gene Hachman's character though is a fascinating study in authoritative leadership taken to the extreme. Is he pure evil? What made him that way? Is the town better off with him or without him? Where does this type of extreme leadership lead? Sharon Stone, Russell Crowe and (a very young) Leonardo DiCaprio give compelling performances. Also a great dialogue starter on ethics.
Regarding Henry
Remember the Titans
Saving Private Ryan
Schindler's List
The Secret Life of Bees
The Shawshank Redemption
Simon Birch
Stand and Deliver
Sunshine Cleaning
Titanic
To Kill A Mockingbird
Wall Street
The Wizard of Oz
Working Girl
X-Men
After watching any of these movies, ask the following questions:
The Big Questions
Who is the most interesting model of leadership in this movie?
What other models of leadership can you spot in the film?
What would happen if all leaders practiced leadership in the way depicted in this film?
What challenges does the film present? How are they handled in the film? What are some alternative ways to handle those challenges?
What evidence did you find for any of these leadership traits: courage, creativity, clarity, compassion?
What did you learn from this movie? How will you apply that to your role as a leader?
What movies would you add to the list? Let us know at:
info@frontrangeleadership.com
If we add your suggestion to the list, we'll mention your name.
A note on copyright: Please be sure to observe all applicable laws in connection with the intellectual property of movies.
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