Frank Reynolds: A Leadership Spotlight

This is not a piece about good leadership.? This is a piece about what not to do as a leader.

If you’re a fan of the show “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” then you already have strong opinions on the leadership style of Frank Reynolds.? If not, let me educate you on who he is.??

Frank Reynolds is the majority owner of the Philadelphia Irish bar, Paddy’s Pub.? Frank owns the bar in partnership with the children he raised, but didn’t father, Dennis and Dee Reynolds, as well as their childhood friend Mac, also known as Ronald McDonald, and his alleged son, Charlie Kelly.? Allow me to recap, two of the co-owners are kids he thought were his and one of the co-owners is a kid he denies is his.??

Technically Charlie isn’t a co-owner anymore because he gave up his shares of the bar for half of a sandwich at one point in time, but let’s not get technical.

Frank is the financier, ring leader, and generally awful human being behind the madness that happens inside and outside of Paddy’s Pub.? When we first meet Frank, he is attempting to come back into Dennis and Dee’s life to make up for the lost time and implied horrible parenting that he did when they were younger.? Frank shows up and instantly starts causing drama by falling into trash human ways, but this is exactly what you as a viewer want.??

While Frank is absolutely a garbage human, he’s even worse as the ringleader and supposed owner of the bar.? Let’s dive into a few examples that explain his leadership tactics and why they wouldn’t work in corporate America.??

In the episode, “The Gang Dances Their Asses Off,” Frank attempts to introduce an employee evaluation program to the team in an effort to run the bar like a real business.? Upon learning that it’s a ten page document, Dennis refuses to fill it out causing backlash among the gang.? Frank then launches into the fact that if Dennis does not fill it out, it will affect his employee ranking.? When the gang asks questions, Frank begins announcing their rankings to the group.? He tells Dee she is ranked 5th (dead last) because she has “too much lip and is very sassy.? He also tells Mac that he’s ranked 3rd because he’s “too volatile.”

While Frank gets points for his attempt at providing structure and order in the form of employee evaluations, he also fails to showcase the real value behind this program.? It was also inappropriate for Frank to share each employee’s ranking without consulting them first.? Perhaps Dee didn’t want her peers to know where she ranked.? Frank also showcases that he wasn’t being transparent with his team prior to the rollout of the employee evaluations because he is sharing their ranking system in real time rather than setting them up with the value of the program ahead of time.??

Imagine hearing from your boss that there is a secret ranking system that nobody was aware of.? Then, during a team meeting, he decides to air out where you stand and he tells you the negative reason why you’re ranked where you are.? This level of negative leadership showcases Frank’s terrible leadership qualities.? Instead, Frank could have published the rules and standards behind the ranking system a week in advance, given them a heads up on how they could work to be ranked second (because he ranked himself first), and allowed them time to complete the evaluations.??

Frank later showcases his inability to successfully lead his team when the gang got into a sticky situation with the local mafia in the episode titled, “The Gang Gets Whacked.”? Long story short, there were some speakers that fell off the back of a truck, there may or may not have been a big bag of drugs inside the speaker that the gang later attempted to flip with a shady guy named Bingo, anyways, that’s neither here nor there.? The point is that during this window of time, his co-owners get into a back and forth with some not so great people and he refuses to pay to get them out of the situation, despite having plenty of money.??

Frank even goes as far as to spend $25,000 on a chalice, rather than use that money to bail out the gang.? Frank repeatedly says he needs to teach everyone a lesson because they continue to get into these situations.? In a time when he could be providing leadership and supporting his team, he turns his back on them even shoving it in their face that he absolutely can help them, but he'd rather see them learn a lesson.? There certainly is a time and place to sit back while your team struggles through a challenging time and then provide coaching and feedback afterwards, but to put them in danger or harm absolutely provides no value.??

This lack of support is evident at the start of the episode too when the lights go out and Frank refuses to fix the electrical.? He volunteers Charlie to fix it because he doesn’t want to get himself electrocuted.? Instead of showing the gang how to fix the lights and or just hire a professional, he has no issues with someone else getting hurt as long as there is an ultimate fix.??

Frank really takes it to the next level though when he spends an entire week bullying Dee, and he lets two members of the gang in on the joke.? In the episode, “The Gang Broke Dee,” Frank goes out of his way to set up Dee on the premise that she is achieving her dream of becoming a standup comedian.??

A real leader learns of their team's goals and dreams and uses them to motivate them.? Perhaps you learn that a team member wants to take an exotic trip to Tahiti or that they want to save up enough money to buy a fancy car.? Great leaders find ways to tie motivation and goals back to achieving these dreams and keep their people focused as a result.? Not Frank Reynolds.

Upon learning that Dee wants to be a standup comedian, Frank begins to pay audience members to show up and laugh on command.? He even sets up a fake fan club, and eventually pays a fake talent agent to fly Dee to be on the Conan O’Brien show as a guest comedian.? Although that airplane only circles Philadelphia for six hours before landing at a fake TV set to surprise Dee that the joke is on her and none of the laughs or fans were actually real.??

This is not leadership.? Frank took Dee’s dream and exploited it to teach her a lesson around her own struggles with her goals. Rather than come up with a way to help motivate her, he turned her dream against her.??

We later learn of Frank’s inability to steer his team in a time of crisis.? In the episode, “Wolf Cola: A Public Relations Nightmare,” Frank can’t control his own instinct and emotions which in turn drives his failing side hustles even deeper into the ground.??

While I won’t bore you with the details, the high level is this; Frank sets up a money laundering front of a company called Wolf Cola.? Eventually, the company takes off as a result of a terrorist group adopting it as their official soft drink.? The news picks up this story and calls Wolf Cola out, leading Frank to find a way to confront this public relations crisis.? I also need to remind you that Wolf Cola is tied to the same LLC as Fight Milk, a drink designed for bodyguards by bodyguards.? Regardless, let’s dive into how Frank handles this opportunity to lead.

First, he decides to try and escape the country by asking Dee to dye his hair blonde.? It’s never a great idea to show your team that rather than leaning into the situation, you’re more interested in escaping.? This leads to zero confidence in your ability to help lead through challenges.? Frank then allows Dennis to come up with the strategy on how to respond to the media but Dennis tells the group they only have twenty four hours to respond.? Dennis’s first strategy is a great one, but Frank of course ruins it with his lack of leadership oversight.?

Upon being interviewed by the local news, Dennis is working to control the narrative around how Wolf Cola is responding and that they are taking these allegations seriously.? The news anchor appears to be listening and siding with their strategy until Frank steps in and ruins the entire thing.? Frank then goes on to explain to the news anchor that the terrorist group consuming Wolf Cola hasn’t been responsible for the same dangerous acts as other groups have been, so perhaps this isn’t a big deal after all.? Unfortunately, they’re back to the drawing board on solutions with the twenty four hour clock ticking.??

Frank continues through the next few days ruining any hope at a solid PR strategy, and the clock continues to get reset.? As a result, Wolf Cola and Fight Milk are now both in disastrous territory.? Poor leadership, no strategy, no cohesive approach, and a lack of confidence are no way to drive a business or team.? Frank checks all the boxes constantly.?

Although I can share story after story, one final note that comes to mind is when Frank decides to profit off all of those working on his behalf.? In the episode, “Frank’s Back in Business,” Frank is called back in as CEO of the company he once ran as they are headed towards bankruptcy.? Frank, also known as the Warthog by board members, is quickly thrusted back in to save the company.? Unfortunately, he does the opposite.??

Upon learning that the company needs him, he instantly starts causing havoc by firing people on the spot with no warning, needlessly spending the company money on expensive sushi dinners, tennis games, and new suits.? He enlists Charlie to help lead business efforts and quickly fires him upon learning that Charlie was out of his league to begin with.? It should also be noted that Charlie can’t read, so being an assistant wasn’t going to be his forte.??

While the board members and employees of the company wait for Frank to get things back on track, he does the exact opposite and liquidates the entire company off for his own profit, destroying everything around him.? Frank absolutely has no care for the company or people, rather the profit he can make at the expense of everyone else.? This is another example of Frank’s awful leadership and lack of human emotion.??

Great leaders find ways to bring everyone along with them.? They find ways to help others share in the success and profits.? They are constantly looking for methods to ensure everyone gets a piece of the victory.? Frank, does the complete opposite in this situation, and frankly it’s the story of his awful leadership through and through.??

Frank Reynolds; terrible leader, horrible father, bar owner, money launderer, and Troll in the play Nightman Cometh among other titles.? Quite possibly the worst leader in the history of television characters.??

by Scott Bond