Last month the media was full of stories marking the anniversary of one of the greatest speeches of all time, Dr Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ address in Washington. What makes a speech resonate to such a degree that it is still celebrated 50 years later? The ‘I… Read More »Nine keys to an extraordinary speech: Amistad
Movies are full of them. So are great speeches. Yet in business communication, this simple but powerful technique is used surprisingly rarely. What are they? Analogies. As Chip and Dan Heath point out in the brilliant Made to Stick, analogies work. They make concepts simple and understandable. What’s more, they… Read More »The secret technique for powerful communication
As a leader, teacher or educator, much of your success will depend on your ability to communicate in a way that really resonates with your audience. That’s not an easy task. In our age of internet, social media and smartphones, we’re assailed by thousands of messages a day. Only by… Read More »Make your messages sticky: lessons from Freedom Writers
With the cinematic release of Star Trek Into Darkness, it seems a good time to recall the conversation from JJ Abrams’ 2009 Star Trek which turns the life of the delinquent young James T Kirk. Captain Pike’s short chat with a beaten-up Kirk following a bar brawl, shown below, is… Read More »The leadership conversation that ignites a Star Trek icon
Change is at the heart of leadership. And making a compelling case for change is essential. But what if people are happy with how things are, and don’t see the need for change? That’s the situation faced by British politician William Wilberforce and his abolitionist colleagues in the late 1700s,… Read More »Leading change: lessons from the abolition of slavery
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
Watching Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, it’s striking how little America seems to have changed politically in 150 years. Two diametrically opposed ideologies still lie separated by a narrow middle ground. Similarly, it’s distinctive how relevant Abraham Lincoln’s leadership is for our contemporary world. Here are five lessons from Lincoln’s struggle to… Read More »Lead like Lincoln: leadership lessons from honest Abe
Since movieleadership.com launched in late 2011, the search term that brings more people here than any other is ‘leadership lessons from Coach Carter’. And no wonder: it’s not only a highly entertaining movie, but packed full of great leadership behaviour too. Take its climactic scene (spoiler alert!) where Carter, having… Read More »Great movie speeches: Coach Carter and recognition