Braveheart Leadership

Much is written about leadership. It is a popular topic in the business press – any issue of any business magazine will have at least one article on some aspect of it. Go to your local bookstore and you can find shelves of books on one or more facet of it, including one I wrote. It is an important, desirable skill, and valuable skill. These are the reasons why it has been analyzed, discussed, surveyed and studied so extensively for so long.

Leadership is a complex set of skills and behaviors. Organizations throughout history have granted leadership through positions, in armies, in governments, and in businesses. When people granted (or born into) these positions have, or develop some of the requisite skills of effective leaders, they become historic.

But effective leaders, often the most effective, aren't leaders because of position. They are leaders borne of necessity or opportunity or fate. William Wallace is one of these leaders.

Braveheart is loosely based on the life of William Wallace. You can learn much about how the movie has fictionalized his life in thirty minutes of web surfing. I learned all I needed to know about the similarities when I learned that in 1861, 556 years after his death, 100,000 people gathered to honor him at the opening ceremony of a National Monument for the Battle of Stirling; a monument honoring his memory.

100,000 people 556 years later.

Use that test on any great leaders you can name. How many will engender that kind of love, respect and admiration 556 years after their death?

In the film, it is in the moments before this very battle in the film that we see Wallace as a charismatic leader. Through the power of his words he gels a disparate band of Scots from various clans together to fight in a battle none of them feel they can win. Charisma is a trait people assign to leaders. It is one of the reasons people often say leaders are born, not made. After all, some people are just naturally charismatic, right?

Some amount of charisma may be in our genes. But much of it comes from being able to clearly communicate. Communicating simply, communicating consistently, communicating passionately. People we call charismatic care about others. They listen. They seek to understand. All of these traits can be learned and improved. It isn't just genetics. Besides, it isn't only leadership trait we can learn about in watching this movie.

William Wallace is smart and he knows his stuff. If you are leading a business, you need to know the business to make good strategic decisions. Wallace makes great strategic decisions. He is able to make these because he is smart, yes, but more so because he is well prepared. He knows military strategy and history, because he has studied it. This knowledge and preparation, along with his native intelligence, allows him to make good decisions. In whatever areas in our lives where we might lead, we can learn from this example. We can study. We can prepare. This effort will be rewarded.

Wallace leads by example. Those leading the English armies he fought, sat on their horses, high on a hill, and away from the battle. Wallace stood at the front lines, with his troops, battling with them side by side. Most of us can't fathom standing on a battle line, nor would we ever have to. That doesn't make this lesson of leadership any less real for us. I learned it as a boy, from my father on our family farm. I was asked to do some pretty nasty jobs, none life threatening, but certainly not fun. One of the reasons I (willingly) did them was that it was clear that Dad never asked me to do something he wasn't willing to do, or hadn't done many times himself. Often, leading by example, he would work with me on the project for awhile, both as an instructor, but just as importantly, as a leader by example.

The greatest leaders have a clear vision or purpose. Wallace is single minded. All he wants is freedom. Freedom is the focus on his stirring speech at the Battle of Stirling, and resonates from his comments to Robert the Bruce, "There's a difference between us. You think the people of this land exist to provide you with position. I think your position exists to provide those people with freedom. And I go to make sure that they have it." Freedom is what he wants for his countrymen. And what is the last thing he says in the movie?

Freedom!

Such a tremendous singleness of purpose. We can inspire and be inspired by a clear purpose.

William Wallace wasn't a leader by position, and most of us aren't either. Wallace was a great leader, both on the screen and in real life, and you can be too. If you want to improve your leadership skills, I encourage you to go to the library or bookstore. There are lots of great things to read, they'll help you. You'll find the lessons of William Wallace as you read: communicate, care about others, be well prepared and knowledgeable, lead by example, and have a crystal clear purpose. These are important traits and behaviors of effective leaders. You can learn them all. The books will help, but so will watching Braveheart.

I worked off and on, for several years on a project called Magical Movies - designed to help people draw learning lessons from inspirational movies.  In celebration of this month's topic on JJL, I have updated the e-book on Magical Movies that we sell on our website.  This updated e-book available to you now for free - with my complements.  You can learn the specifics about it and download a copy here.

[Photo credit: Braveheart DVD image found on Wikipedia.]

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Post author Kevin Eikenberry is an author, speaker, trainer, consultant and the Chief Potential Officer of the Kevin Eikenberry Group - a learning consulting company.  He is also the author of Remarkable Leadership - Unleashing Your Leadership Potential One SKill at a Time. You can read his blogs here and here.

There is more from Kevin here at JJL!
His last contribution for us was A Word a Day Keeps Your Mind at Play within our theme of digital learning tools.

Comments

[Rosa Say]

What a rich post you write Kevin for the leadership junkie in me (and not just me... I daresay we have several Leadership Junkie Club charter members within our JJL community!)

Offering your e-book to us was an exceptionally generous thing to do too- mahalo! I for one will be sure to take advantage of it, and I'm sending this link to a group of managers I now have working on a communications project within one of my SLC coaching courses.

[Kevin Eikenberry]

You are most welcome Rosa - thanks for the ongoing opportunity to be a contributing part of this community and for all the work you do to make it all work!

Kevin :)

[Simon Young]

Thanks Kevin, this is a great post. I just watched Braveheart for the umpteenth time on the weekend and so much stood out to me. I love his line to Robert the Bruce about position.

I also love Robert's journey. He catches on a bit late, but ... he does catch on. He shows the truth of Wallace's line: "They may take our lives, but they cannot take away our freedom!" ... someone else will step in.

So we don't often come across daily issues that threaten to take our lives, but it does bring up the importance of succession planning! :)

[Steve Sherlock]

Kevin, a great posting and a generous offer. Thank you!

This is timely. I am participating in a meeting about mentor programs, effectively how can we better expand the opportunity for sharing the knowledge that each of us has. In particular, how to engage the senior managers, who would be good leaders, to truly help those who could be part of the succession plan and are certainly part of making the company's process work. Maybe we should consider using the movies as lessons for our mentors? Especially the ones on leadership.

[Karen Wallace]

Great review of a great movie, Kevin. Having married into the Wallace family, I've heard much debate about the accuracy of William Wallace's portrayal over family dinner tables. But that debate has never dulled my admiration for the man - as a leader and as a man.

For me, the true test of a leader is leading from the front - not directing from behind. Like your father on the farm, William Wallace didn't expect others to do what he would not. He went first.

I will have to pull out the DVD and watch this one again now.

[Kevin Eikenberry]

Steve - Movies can be a great tool for your mentoring program - the e-book might help and feel free to contact me to discuss further. And Karen... after you watch it, comment back here and let us know what you thought!

Kevin :)

[April]

Great observations! Powerful image it is indeed to watch a man not waver from principle even when he is being disemboweled on a table. While we will hopefully never experience that form of actual torture, I am sure many of us have found ourselves in situations that felt as if we were.

Test of leadership is to go first, lead from the front, understand who you are and live the talk.

I can't wait to read your book!