A Big Screen Lesson for Leaders

I recently saw an episode of a show where one scene stuck with me, so I have decided to write about it here. I'll set the scene, tell you the one difference that would have brought it home, and how this links to present-day leadership in just about any workplace.

Setting the Scene

Rewind time to the beginning of the space race and tweak the timeline such that the USSR was first to put a human on the moon. A few years later, two countries establish small moon bases - each smaller than my living room and master bedroom combined. Well, each needs to be resupplied, so the US launches a replacement crew with supplies for their base. Run of the mill operation, right?

Not quite. That rocket has a problem while in orbit and needs a repair, so they send up another group of astronauts to do just that. At this point there are now six astronauts, one rocket, one capsule, and no space stations in orbit. When repairs on the rocket are completed without a hitch, they flip the proverbial 'on' switch and all hell breaks loose. One astronaut dies within five seconds. Two others are hurtled on a bad trajectory toward the moon in a freshly busted rocket, which can neither simply stop nor turn around. A fourth astronaut is tossed into orbit with no life line. The last two make it back into a capsule that can re-enter Earth safely.

With two astronauts now kind of on their way to the moon, the Houston Space Center now faces a choice concerning the three astronauts in Earth's orbit:

1. bring the two astronauts in the capsule safely home and leave the stranded one to die
2. engage in a daring rescue of the stranded astronaut with little time, literally a small window, no onboard instrument tracking, a dud flashlight, and almost no margin for error*

* If the second option was selected and any small error occurred, the two astronauts in the capsule would not have been able to return to Earth either and would die, too.

The stranded astronaut had quickly accepted their fate and did not want the rescue attempt lest anything happen to those other two astronauts who were safe to return home. Dissent grew among the ranks, so it fell to the leader at the Houston Space Center to make the call. With a very heavy heart and a lot of concern (which was very well acted IMO), the first option was selected - but that is not the leadership moment I care to highlight. It's what didn't happen in response to what happened next.

Mutiny. The astronauts in orbit and the ground crew in the control room all refused the order and proceeded with the daring rescue.

Revised Leadership Moment

While the leader in the Houston Space Center control room accepted the dissent and reversed their decision, a pivotal moment in team-building was missed. Instead of only saying something akin to, "Okay, let's..." I would have said something like this:

Thank you for reminding me who I am working with.

You can flavour that with additional words followed by a big let's-do-it. The point is, if your staff know they are awesome and are geared up to be awesome in a situation where their awesomeness is called for, explicitly admit that you, their leader, forgot their calibre and then simply bring yourself up to meet it.

That scene in that episode was an example of bottom-up feedback working wonders. By adding the line I suggested, there is no way a leader can be deposed in a situation where they recognize and support group skill/talent when it is both present and needed.

Links to the Present

Hierarchies and risk aversion abound, much to the chagrin of just about every economy. This statement is a summation of staff awesomeness being side-lined in an unquantifiably huge number of contexts and situations. Personally, I consider this to be untapped potential.

A leader who does not tap into the potential of their staff chooses to load their day and week and month...with increasingly difficult decisions. In terms of knowing what a leader can do instead, I suggest seeing the world differently. When a leader does this, focusing on that untapped potential indirectly becomes a priority and their day-to-day to-do lists will change accordingly.

In short, aim to poise your staff to let their awesomeness come out in the ways it needs to every time it's needed. If you have a tough decision with seconds remaining on the clock, it's okay if you miss variables. That's what your awesome teammates can cover. Let them align the stars since you would have long-since enabled that capacity in them. If you do that and then forget that you did, like in the scene described above, it's okay. They're awesome. Period. So thank them.

To check out other articles I have written on Vocal Media on leadership and other topics, click here.

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