Television as a Leadership Tool

Last spring I got an interesting question:

Completely random, but regarding the blog: have you considered tying it into Mad Men in some way? Given the popularity of the show, you could review parts of certain episodes by looking at the management style of Sterling Cooper. Things are a bit different these days, of course…just a random thought that I’m throwing out there.

An interesting idea, and one worth considering, but the biggest logistical problem was that I didn’t watch the show, and the second biggest problem was that it was ending this summer. (however, partly in response to this question, I did proceed to binge watch all 7 seasons over the course of the summer…and yeah, it was pretty good)

But this gets away from my real question, which is: can we learn about leadership from television?

The answer is a definitive “maybe.”

Both fictional shows like Mad Men and “reality” shows like DC Cupcakes (filmed three doors down from where I used to work, so maybe I was occasionally in background shots eating their awesome Peanut Butter Fudge cupcake) or Hell’s Kitchen may provide some useful case studies, or starting points for discussions. The fictional shows can be useful for seeing problems, though you need to be careful about adopting the solutions they come up with; remember, they have a team of writers figuring out how to resolve a situation in 60 minutes with time for commercials, so they might not be too relevant in the real world where you operate. With the reality shows, well, if nothing else you can see some of the dramatic personalities you might be facing and you can be thinking about how you would deal with them. In both cases, the television show can suggest a challenge for discussion, but the results you come up with should not be driven by what you saw on TV.

One advantage to using a popular show as the basis for a blog, or for your own in-house training or even discussions with peers, is that it provides a common frame of reference. Lots of people might not have read Drive by Daniel Pink (even though they should) but they may well have seen this week’s Big Bang Theory. Sometimes the biggest challenge in a leadership conversation is getting people to the same starting point, and a popular TV show can be a good way to do that (and please note, I’m not suggesting you infringe on anyone’s intellectual property rights here, but do consider making “fair use” of what’s out there)

The trick, of course, is to find something relevant. I am a big fan of The Walking Dead, and while the zombie apocalypse offers a LOT of great leadership lessons, they might not be especially useful in your organization. Or, even worse, they might.