The issue of gay marriage has once again brought gay rights back to the top of the political agenda. But Gus Van Sant’s brilliant Milk reminds us just how far society has come on gay rights in the last 30 years – and the struggle and sacrifice of some of those… Read More »Five ways how Harvey Milk can improve your leadership
With the release of Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, interest in the famous American President has never been higher. In Lead like Lincoln, I highlighted five key leadership lessons I personally took from the movie. Many other writers have identified additional lessons, both from the movie and the man himself. Mark Crowley’s… Read More »More leadership lessons from Lincoln
A key aspect of leadership is to give purpose and direction. But it can also be about providing hope: hope that circumstances will improve, that this time things will actually get better and people will start to feel valued and fulfilled once again. It’s a message explored in the 1991… Read More »The leadership of hope: The Last Castle
With Olympic fever gripping the UK, it seems a good time to revisit Miracle, the 2004 film that depicts one of the great Olympic underdog stories. I was only 11 during the 1980 Winter Olympics, but can still clearly recall the elation of the US ice hockey team following their… Read More »Seven Olympic leadership lessons from Miracle
It seems strange, to me at least, that women could ever legitimately be paid less than men for doing the same job. But equal pay legislation is just 40 years old, and Made in Dagenham tells the inspiring story of the female workers at Ford’s UK Dagenham plant and their… Read More »How to change history: Made in Dagenham
Ivan Reitman’s 1993 comedy Dave may not be most people’s first choice of a great leadership movie. But for me it demonstrates perfectly a key facet of leadership: that it is a choice rather than a position. In the movie, the White House recruits uncanny presidential lookalike Dave Kovic (Kevin Kline)… Read More »How to win over your team: everyman leadership in Dave
Many organisations have a vision and values, but only in the best does that vision truly galvanise its people and result in better performance. Why? Because often that vision either isn’t compelling enough, or leaders fail to act consistently with the goal they have set out. In Mel Gibson’s stirring though… Read More »Why Braveheart’s clarity of vision can help every leader
Humour is a powerful weapon in learning and you can find plenty of it in Chicken Run, the brilliant animated pastiche of World War II escape movies. Our heroine is Ginger, the plucky hen who leads her fellow inmates of Tweedy’s Chicken Farm in an audacious mass breakout to secure their freedom.… Read More »Lead like Ginger: five lessons from Chicken Run