6 Leadership Lessons from Deadpool & Wolverine. Yes, really.

We love Deadpool in our family. In fact it's so much a part of our family lore that when our younger daughter graduated high school in 2020 in the thick of the pandemic and we could only celebrate her in a slideshow/drive-in format rather than on a stage, this was the slide we made for her:

So when the newest Deadpool movie came out last week, we were there on opening night. And while I know this seems like just an adventure movie filled with comedy and an extra dose of gratuitous violence, stick with me for a minute here—there really are leadership lessons everywhere we look. Here are six lessons for great leaders that I saw in Deadpool vs. Wolverine: (Warning: SPOILERS AHEAD if you haven't seen the movie yet, especially #5 and #6.)

1. Everyone wants to matter.

In the opening of the movie, there's a scene where Deadpool is interviewing with Happy Hogan for a place in the Avengers. Why? He says he wants to matter. He wants his life to have purpose. This is true for the vast majority of people. According to McKinsey , 82% of employees believe their company should have a purpose and more than 2/3 of people find their purpose at work.

In 20+ years of asking my team members to complete Motivators Charts , Purpose is consistently among the top 3 motivators across thousands of charts. Everyone wants to know that they matter. If we can help people understand how their individual work makes a difference, they are more likely to be highly engaged, recommend the organization as a place to work, and stay on our teams longer.

2. We're happier & more successful in our Zone of Genius

Early in the film, we see that Deadpool (Wade Wilson) has left his career as a superhero/vigilante to take a job as a used car salesman. Not only is he miserable in this job, but he's also not very good at it. This is what happens when people take jobs that don't align with their natural talents, sometimes known as "Zone of Genius." Natural talents are activities that feel easy to us and bring us energy and joy. Among Deadpool's natural talents are protecting people, creative fighting, making a well-placed, sarcastic joke, etc. Needless to say, these are not the core talents needed in car sales.

According to Gallup , when companies have both managers and employees working in their areas of talent, people are more likely to be engaged and successful in their jobs, which leads to better results for the company. It's why we built a "Natural Talents" kit into Rising Team so everyone can assess their own Zone of Genius and make sure they can take roles and work on projects that align with what lights them up. (Though hopefully not fighting and mocking others, which are not welcomed in many workplaces....)

3. Past failures prepare us to face future challenges

When Deadpool goes looking for Wolverine, he finds him alone and depressed, sitting in a bar. He's sinking into despair because of mistakes he made in that version of the timeline that led to the deaths of many people. While most of us aren't responsible for massive consequences like that, we've all had failures and setbacks along the way.

Typically the leadership science focuses on the importance of resilience, and getting back up after we fall, which is critical. Deadpool & Wolverine focuses on a slightly different lesson here—even though we may be really knocked down by a previous failure, that experience makes us who we are, and prepares us to tackle the next challenge. While Wolverine spends a lot of time in what I call "the bottom of the valley," that experience prepares him to fight even harder when he has a chance to redeem himself later.

So as leaders, while we want to encourage our teams (and ourselves) to bounce back, sometimes we also need to honor the emotions people feel when they fail, and know it's ok to spend a bit more time in that zone knowing it will prepare us to go to battle stronger the next time.

4. Work friends are important

We met Peter in Deadpool 2 as part of the rag tag X-force team Deadpool pulled together, all of whom but one died in that film. Lucky for us, Peter is brought back via a time travel sequence in the credits of that movie to reprise his role as one of Deadpool's closest friends in Deadpool & Wolverine.

They work at the used car lot together, and Peter later comes back to save the day when Deadpool and Wolverine are fighting a large group of Deadpools that come out from the Void (including the awesome Blake Lively as Lady Deadpool, two of the Reynolds children, and many other cameos.) How does Peter save the day? Every Deadpool has a Peter, so they all love him! When he says "This Deadpool's with me," all the other Deadpools stand down.

It turns out that friends matter at work. In fact one of the highest predictors of employee engagement according to Gallup is having a best friend at work. Especially in this era of distributed and hybrid teams, and with loneliness on the rise, it's critical to help our teams form strong connections that grow into friendships. It's why we build Rising Team to make it easy for all leaders to build teams that feel more connected and get better results.

We all need a Peter. Plus, we never know when our work friends might just jump in to save us!

5. Reciprocity is real

The rule of Reciprocity is a social norm often at play in the workplace, where when someone does something helpful for us, we feel obligated to help them in return. While this can happen in a direct way (such as salespeople offering a free gift, dinner, etc. hoping to gain a new customer), it also occurs on a day-to-day basis when people genuinely offer help without asking for or knowing they will receive help in return. The norm still operates, of course. Even when we don't ask people for anything in return, when we help others, they are likely to assist us when we need it.

We see reciprocity in action in Deadpool & Wolverine when "The Resistance" made up of Blade, Elektra, Gambit, and X-23 (incredible set of cameos) helps Deadpool and Wolverine escape the void. They jump into action and are willing to sacrifice without asking for anything in return. And when the time comes to offer reciprocity, Deadpool and Wolverine certainly do. (No more spoiler details here.)

6. Teams always win

Here I'm holding off on showing the actual end-of-movie photo or sharing the exact story for fear of ruining the big moment for folks who haven't seen it yet. Needless to say, it's always better to approach major challenges as a team than it is on our own. This has been a through line of all the Deadpool films. While it often seems like Deadpool is a solo act, at the end of each movie, it's a team that comes together to win.

This is true of work as well. Especially for the largest challenges we face—major technical hurdles, looming competitive threats, rapidly changing market dynamics—two plus minds, sets of hands, and passionate hearts are better than one. Although it can be nerve-wracking to ask others for help, invariably we are better off when we do.

Any other leadership lessons you gathered from the film? If so, leave them in the comments. And if you haven't seen it yet, I encourage you to. It's a couple hours of fun, with some great lessons squeezed in as well.

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