Iron Man, Personal Growth, and Leadership
Spoiler alert: If you plan to see “The Avengers”, you may want to hold off reading this. I’m about to describe a pivotal moment in the movie.
As you probably know by now, the story involves a group of flawed but powerful people (more or less) who have to find a way to work together to defeat a greedy, narcissistic demigod who is determined to own the earth and subjugate the human race – to “make them kneel,” because to Loki (the Norse god and villain), that is all humans are good for.
The metaphor for the debate about our current business and social climate is too easy – but that’s not what really struck me during this scene.
Loki is about to open a portal to Asgard to let in a marauding army of Frost Giants. The Avengers are struggling to figure out where he is so they can stop him. Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) tries to reason it out, thinking of what Loki could be after – and describes Loki as a narcissistic, power-mad individual who wants to have his name plastered all over some monument to himself….and Stark stops cold, realizing that Loki is at the Stark Industries building - which has his name plastered all over it. And he realizes the irony (sorry). He looks in the mirror, and sees Loki looking back at him. He sees his enemy in himself. And then he knows how to win, and he ends up taking the biggest risk, not for himself, but on behalf of the world.
How many of us have the courage to look in that mirror? Or, having looked, can accept what we see? And further, once we see it, do something about it? That is personal, transformational change. Tony Stark did it in the movie, and Robert Downey Jr. did it in real life. Downey was written off, but had the courage to come back and has now exceeded even the best estimates of his potential that people were putting forward when he was down.
And he is not the only one. Our world is full of heroes, and stories of redemption, if we choose to look at them.
How Great Companies Build Great Leaders
By Michael Stafford & Jon Anastasio
Here are the introductory paragraphs from our article in the Spring edition of the Insights newsletter published by the Center for Leadership Formation, Albers School of Business and Economics, Seattle University. The full newsletter is here and our article starts on page 3. My colleague, Mike Stafford, is the Managing Member of Management Performance Solutions, LLC, and former SVP of Talent Management for Starbucks. The article is based on our learning from our own experience and what many of our colleagues have shared about what makes leadership learning stick.
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Countless stories fill the news about the obvious and tangible financial and material impact of the recession. Home foreclosures, unemployment, and massive federal debt are serious impacts and need to continue to be addressed and quickly resolved.
However, the intangible negative consequences of the recession on employee engagement and the employee/employer contract have not received nearly as much popular attention. As the economy improves, there may be a high cost in employee loyalty and commitment, and organizations could possibly experience an exodus of top talent who have been waiting to leave until the job market strengthened. This is potentially bad news for company bench strength charts, as retaining your future leaders is a key element in building leadership continuity.
Even without a talent exodus, the forecasted need for leadership talent is high. Deloitte has just published the latest findings in their longitudinal study “Talent Edge 2020: Redrafting talent strategies for the uneven recovery.” They state: “Approximately one-third (30%) of executives surveyed ranked developing leaders and succession planning as today’s top talent priority—the highest of any response in the survey.” Yet, they also report “Corporate talent programs are falling short on performance and investment.”[1]
So what’s the answer?
The best companies do not change their stripes when things get tough. They commit to staying the course and maintain a positive culture and climate as they work through their financial and operational issues. They may cut activities, but they stay true to their foundational development values.
