Advisers who can’t be trusted. Threats from more powerful competitors. A divided organisation who have no faith in your ability to lead, and are deeply suspicious of your motives Oh, and potential assassins at every turn. That’s the scenario confronting the new monarch in Elizabeth, Shekhar Kapur’s fascinating film on… Read More »Baptism of fire: how Elizabeth stabilised her nation
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
When I first watched Thirteen Days, I was shocked how close the Cuban Missile Crisis brought us to armageddon. I’m old enough to remember the end of the Cold War, but the hair’s breadth from conflict that the film portrays is eye opening. The film dramatises the traumatic period in 1962… Read More »Top five leadership movies: Thirteen Days
There’s a scene in Apollo 13 when Flight Controller John Aaron declares that, to get the stricken shuttle back to Earth, they’ll need to get the shuttle power output down to 12 amps. The response? ‘You can’t run a vacuum cleaner on 12 amps John!’ It’s a moment that perfectly… Read More »Top five leadership movies: Apollo 13
There were some misty eyes around the world recently – including mine – at the release of the final Harry Potter movie. I’ve loved both the books and the films, and Deathly Hallows Part 2 was a fitting finale to a movie series that got better and better. But can… Read More »What can we learn about leadership from Harry Potter?