Oscar Worthy Leadership Styles in Action
The Oscars are a great reminder of the power of story, and for aspiring leaders of organizations, some stories and characters offer lessons even better (much better) than a management textbook. Javier Bardem, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Troy Kotsur, and Daniel Dae Kim are each Oscar worthy and leadership role models — in very different ways.
In Right Leader Right Time: Discover Your Leadership Style for a Winning Career and Company, we identified four leadership styles found in all successful leaders, but to varying degrees — Fixer, Artist, Builder, and Strategist — or FABS for short. Great leaders double down in one dominant trait, and this also shows up in some remarkable characters on screen.
Here is a look at how Oscar nominated films can be a great way to show FABS leadership styles in action — and not! Four winners inspire us, while four Razzies show the worst of leadership, sometimes the planet-ending kind.
THE FIXER LEADER
This leader is skilled at navigating through chaotic or broken organizations, cutting through the mess, putting out fires, and getting people and organizations back on track. Our nomination for Oscar-worthy Fixer is:
Desi Arnez — Being the Ricardos
Played by Javier Bardem, Academy Awards Nominee for Best Actor in a Leading Role
For a master class in saving a hopeless situation, moving from crisis to success, watch Javier Bardem’s portrayal of Desi Arnez in Being the Ricardos. Bardem’s Desi doesn’t try to domineer despite the crisis — Lucy’s been accused of being a Communist at the moment in Washington and Hollywood when that was the death sentence for an actor’s career. In fact Desi is the calm one — a key trait for a Fixer. He keeps a keen eye on what’s most important. He’s tough (one of the best lines in the movie is the sponsor telling the executive producer, “Don’t fuck with the Cuban.”) And most importantly, there’s an element of magic, surprise and heroic saving the day when the big reveal is that he’s produced J. Edgar Hoover himself to exonerate Lucy. That’s a classic Fixer leader’s best act.
Razzie Award Winner: And what happens in a crisis when you don’t have a great Fixer Leader? You get the wonderful Oscar nominated film Don’t Look Up, showing the worst of Artist, Builder, and Strategist modes, with no one left to save the day.
THE ARTIST LEADER
When fresh thinking is needed, whether it’s a new product, service, technology, campaign, or project, call the Artist leader, who excels at innovative out-of-the-box thinking. Whether starting from scratch or re-thinking what’s there, the Artist leader is essential for forward progress. Our nomination for Oscar-worthy Artist is:
Peter Gordon — Power of the Dog
Played by Kodi Smit-McPhee, Academy Awards Nominee for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Artist leaders are outliers — renegades — driven to create whether they fit in or not. Kodi’s character Peter Gordon in the Power of the Dog is quirky, offbeat and friendless, spending the summer of 1925 at the Burbank family Montana ranch. He sees his mother victimized by Benedict Cumberbatch’s character Phil Burbank, driving her to drink, and Peter’s razzed and harassed as well. But for innovation, Peter proves formidable. Figuring out how to tempt Phil into using strips of tainted cowhide, to weave an anthrax laden lasso — clever. Critics have wondered why it’s called the Power of the Dog — is it referring to the 22nd Psalm, or a shadow in the hills, or Phil himself? I think that’s Peter’s role — he is the dog. The dog is subservient, underfoot, kicked around, discounted. But like the psalm says, the dog is also a threat. Beware the outcast, misfit, unsung Artist leader who proves in the end to be most powerful.
Razzie Award Winner: But given all that power, watch out if you get too many Artists in the same room. Watch Oscar nominated The Mitchells Vs. the Machines to see the wonderful clash between an Artist dad and Artist daughter coming to grips with different forms of creativity.
THE BUILDER LEADER
The Builder leader is skilled at navigating through growth mode and tackling new markets. They bust through the ceiling in growth, putting the foundation and structure in place for an organization to get bigger and bigger before handing off the reins to pursue their next market opportunity. Our nomination for Oscar-worthy Builder is:
Frank Rossi — CODA
Played by Troy Kotsur, Academy Awards Nominee for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
This is definitely your movie for inspiration on how a Builder builds — against all odds, starting with the fact that Troy Kotsur’s character Frank Rossi and his first employees (his wife and son) can’t even hear their customers. It’s such a left-field idea for a deaf fisherman to launch his own wholesale buying and selling fish market, that when Frank brings up the idea with other local fishermen at a boisterous meeting where they are all faced with rising fees and sanctions, it’s not believable. Or rather, it’s only believable if his daughter Rubi, child of deaf adults, agrees to join the business and put college on hold. You realize the business is going to make it when the hearing workers learn sign language — a team is coming together — no matter the difficulty. The movie is a triumph on so many levels, for Rubi as an aspiring singer, Frank as a more confident father and leader, his son Leo for defiantly believing they can survive and thrive as a business without having to rely on Rubi’s hearing, and for the real world examples of deaf actors Troy Kotsur, Daniel Durant, and Marlee Matlin delivering superb, acclaimed performances.
Razzie Award Winner: No list of tragic leaders would ever be complete if Shakespeare’s pantheon didn’t somehow get at least a passing nod. The Builder Leader gone too far is way too cocky, believing that one success implies they will be successful at anything else, which is Oscar nominee Denzel Washington’s character Macbeth, in The Tragedy of Macbeth. Macbeth’s victory in battle on behalf of King Duncan is the spark for what leads to regicide and his ultimate downfall.
THE STRATEGIST LEADER
The Strategist leader excels in complex, large organizations where they operate at scale. They see the entire playing field and ensure that the many pieces at play are moving in the same direction, continually pushing toward forward movement. Our nomination for Oscar-worthy Strategist is:
Benja — Raya and the Last Dragon
Played by Daniel Dae Kim, Academy Awards Nominee for Best Animated Feature Film
Strategist leaders like Benja, leader of the Heart tribe, attempt the incredible, with complex and large forces at play. He is intent on uniting five warring tribes, viciously jealous of each other’s power but especially eager to throw down the Heart clan because they are the keepers of a last, powerful magical element. In good faith and with openness he invites his competitors to come together, to share in order to grow stronger as a whole. The initial result is, as you could predict, disastrous, and hence a good story. Benja doesn’t have much of a role in Raya beyond his visionary approach, until his daughter and her rivals come together in a triumph over evil. But it started with his vision and outreach.
Razzie Award Winner: It would be easy to pick on, say, President Orlean, Meryl Streep’s character from Don’t Look Up, as a prime example of an incompetent Strategist Leader. I mean she only helps destroy the human race by kowtowing to a big campaign contributor, Mark Rylance’s character, Peter Isherwell, who is equally nuts. But my pick is Duke Leto of House Atreides in the movie Dune, played by the wonderful actor Oscar Isaac, for weakass Strategist muscles. Granted I’ve had it against Duke Leto ever since reading Frank Herbert’s universe-building books. But still. The Strategist leader must have a commanding view of the metaphorical battlefield, knowing who to trust, being able to see around corners as it were, but in Leto’s case, his ruin turns into a literal battlefield he does not foresee, assassinated by evildoers, condemning his family and the noble House Atreides to ruin.
In real life, we are now experiencing the rise of a storyteller Strategist in Volodymr Zelensky.
Stories define us and storytellers have power. From Ronald Reagan’s evolution from Hollywood actor to American president, to Vaclav Havel’s rise from playwright to president of Czechoslovakia and then first president of Czech Republic, we have placed our trust in effective evocative storytellers. Actor Volodymyr Zelensky, elected president of Ukraine, is being tested unlike few true politicians or democratic leaders of the past hundred years. He’s proving a resilient and inspiring leader. Which all started with a story.
About Robert Jordan
Leadership, business expert and author Robert Jordan has spent over 25 years helping owners and investors launch and build their companies. His company InterimExec, with co-founder Olivia Wagner, provides owners and investors with powerful on demand c-suite leaders from his impressive network of 2,300 executives across 45 countries. In his forthcoming book, Right Leader Right Time (G&DMedia, March 29, 2022), he and co-author Wagner interviewed hundreds of the world’s most successful leaders to develop and provide insight on their curated assessment that identifies the four main leadership styles of the world’s most influential leaders.
After founding the first Internet-coverage magazine in the world, Online Access, and landing on the Inc 500 list of fastest-growing companies, Jordan sold the magazine and began taking on interim CEO gigs. In 2007, after successfully selling multiple companies and leading numerous IPOs, Jordan started an online network for interim executives around the globe, which eventually led to establishing InterimExecs.
Jordan is author of How They Did It: Billion Dollar Insights from the Heart of America, and publishing partner for Start With No, Jim Camp’s bestselling book and audio on negotiation. He is a lifelong Chicagoan, with a wife and two daughters plus two dogs.
