The Founder tells the story of McDonalds: its origins as an innovative Californian fast-food restaurant and its transformation to global phenomenon and the world’s sixth largest employer. It’s the story of Ray Kroc, the milkshake machine salesman who persuaded the McDonalds brothers, Dick and Mac, to franchise their restaurant concept before… Read More »The magic of McDonalds: five lessons from The Founder
Even great leaders have very human failings. In Darkest Hour, Gary Oldman’s Winston Churchill is irascible, insensitive and stubborn. But cometh the hour, cometh the man. In the early months of World War Two, the British Army faced annihilation as it was driven back to the beaches of Dunkirk in France. England stood… Read More »How Churchill led Britain through its Darkest Hour
You don’t have to be in a position of authority to show leadership. And one movie that makes this point better than most is The Intern. After a successful career, 70-year-old widower Ben Richards (Robert De Niro) comes out of retirement to become a senior intern at an internet fashion site… Read More »Leading without authority: The Intern
Diversity and tolerance are hot topics in world politics currently, and a TV company in Denmark recently made its entry into the debate. “All That We Share”, which you can see below, is an ad that quickly went viral, notching up over three million views on YouTube in less than two weeks.… Read More »Diversity: highlighting similarity, not difference
One of the best exponents of Kouzes and Posner’s leadership behaviour of ‘model the way’ is surely Nelson Mandela. Both Invictus and Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom illustrate this as Mandela overcomes his personal feelings of bitterness and anger to model the behaviours needed to create a new South Africa: forgiveness… Read More »How Bridge of Spies can help you ‘model the way’
Some 2300 years ago in Ancient Greece, Aristotle wrote his three pillars for public speaking. Surprisingly, they’re just as relevant today as they were then. So relevant in fact, that in Gravitas, Caroline Goyder uses them to define that mystical quality of influence and how to get it. Gravitas, says… Read More »Martin Luther King and the secret of gravitas
Hoosiers (also known in the UK as Best Shot) was an unexpected box office hit in 1985, telling the unlikely story of a tiny high school basketball team who win the State Championship in hoop-mad Indiana in the early 1950s. Disgraced former coach Norman Dale is given a final chance to… Read More »10 key leadership lessons from Hoosiers
Ben Stiller’s sublime The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is awash with inspiring themes – not least the need to take a risk and have courage to break out of the ruts we all find ourselves in from time to time. Walter is the quintessential dreamer, a man who fulfils his… Read More »Walter Mitty and the power of purpose