Leadership Lessons From “The Rise Of The Guardians”

Over the holidays I took my two boys to the movie, The Rise Of The Guardians. I found this movie to be very entertaining and well done. It also contained some great leadership lessons for us to take heed of.

The movie is your classic good versus evil plot. The plot involves five of our childhood make-believe characters that make up The Guardians: Santa, Easter Bunny, Sandman, Tooth Fairy and Jack Frost. While the evil side is represented by the Boogeyman.

In the midst of the fun of watching this delightful movie with my boys I found several leadership principles to ponder.

1. Passion: Through the character of Jack Frost the movie taught the lesson of discovering what you are truly passionate about. It was not until Jack discovered more about who he was and what made himself tick that he then understand why he had been selected as the newest member of The Guardians. Once he discovered his own individual passion for helping others he became an effective member of the team and became a strong ally in defeating the Boogeyman and his evil forces.

2. Teamwork: The Boogeyman had successfully destroyed almost all the happiness and delight in the world by attacking the imaginations of the children of the world. With only one child left to reverse the evil curse brought about by the Boogeyman, the entire team had to unify and use their individual strengths collectively in order to be successful. This movie does a great job of showing the great truth effective teamwork: “Team members must put their individual pride and agendas aside in order to effectively serve the team’s greater objectives.”

3. Overcoming Fear: The big weapon that the Boogeyman used was “fear”! He used that to wield his power over both the children and The Guardians as well. The fear was paralyzing everyone and The Guardians were not able to stand up to the Boogeyman and his evil forces until they collectively conquered their fears and took positive action to eliminate the obstacles they had been challenged with. Allowing fear to paralyze us cripples our leadership and limits the effectiveness of our organizations.

4. Strength Zone: The last lesson we learned from The Guardians was how we are all most effective working within our strength zone. Each team member has his own unique strengths from which to pull from and support the team most effectively. At the climax of the movie we saw each team member excel by using the special gifts they each possess individually to help the team collectively. There is power in unifying behind a mission with each team member contributing their strongest talents to serve the team’s mission.