Leadership Lessons from “The Last Jedi”

[WARNING: SPOILER ALERT] Please note that while this article is not about the film, itself, it does contain some spoilers.

An Open Letter to the Resistance AND the First Order

Good morning ladies and gentlemen of the Resistance and the First Order,

I couldn’t help but notice a couple of things in your last encounter that made me really worry about the future of your respective organizations. In the end, you each made some pretty basic errors that caused tremendous suffering and upheaval to your organizations leaving each of them badly damaged and your people even more badly damaged.

To General Organa:

As a start-up that’s keen on disrupting your industry, you need to be even more reliant on your people than the First Order. While the First Order is a large organization with a strong hold on its market, it is slower to change and has a much more entrenched management structure and far more red tape. Your Resistance, on the other hand, is able to be nimble and quick - to make fast, strategic shifts as the need arises - and, thus, you have a chance to disrupt your larger competition.

In order to be nimble and quick, you must rely on your people to work in the best interest of the organization without the stricter oversight that the First Order is attempting to employ. But, General Organa, if you want your folks to work in the interest of the Resistance - and move in the same direction - you need to be far more transparent and foster both a shared vision (which you do well) and shared strategic goals (which you failed to do in a spectacular way).

Admiral Holdo’s Unbelievable Leadership Mistake

In your last encounter with the First Order, your leadership had a strategic plan to avoid the disaster of being overtaken by the First Order. In fact, your strategic plan was to pivot the organization - namely to sacrifice the larger ship while off-loading your people to the old Rebel base unnoticed. And that was a plan that could easily have worked.

However, in your absence, Admiral Holdo failed to share the plan with the team. The worst part was that she appeared to have no good reason not to do so.

She had a team (of millenials) that REALLY understood and shared the vision, but lacked any information on the strategic goals. Admiral Holdo seemed more interested in being a boss than being a leader. And that cost you dearly.

In fact, in a matter of hours, your organization went from over 400 people down to a group that comfortably fit on the Millenium Falcon as if you were hosting a dinner party.

What interests me is that the team leads confronted her multiple times in order to understand the strategic goals and she failed to engage them. Instead, she ordered them back to their desks and stomped her foot saying, “I’m the boss - go back to work.”

Simply because Admiral Holdo failed to share the organization’s strategic goals with the team she cost the lives of hundreds and now the organization is all but done. She also forgot one of the key lessons of good leadership: when confronted with choices that affect your people, it is best to solicit their opinions so that they can feel part of the decision making process.

If Holdo had shared the strategic goals, then Poe Dameron, Finn, and Rose Tico would not have gone off on their own to try and “help.” And, to be clear, they were, in fact, working in what they thought were the best interests of the organization - they just lacked information and leadership.

Poe, Finn, and Rose ultimately hatched a plan which included hiring a mercenary consultant (the codebreaker/thief, DJ) who worked in his own interest, not in the interest of the organization that hired him. And that one decision was the ONLY reason the strategic plan failed.

If Finn and Rose had stayed put, the First Order would never have known that the Resistance was making a pivot and the organization would have lived another day. (As they say, loose lips sink ships).

General Organa, my advice moving forward is perhaps for you to remember that (particularly in a startup with a strong shared vision) your people will run through walls for you, but if you don’t share the strategic goals as well, the walls that crumble may be your own.

To Supreme Leader Ren:

I hear it now... a millenial is in charge.

Actually, I think that’s not a bad thing. A fresh perspective and new energy is often a good thing for a large and stable organization. In fact, you made a good point when you told Rey that it was time to let the old ways die and that with some balance of having two leaders with opposing, but complimentary viewpoints, you could actually do some good in the universe. Laudable goal.

But let’s get some things out of the way real quick...You came up through the ranks of an old-school way of thinking and you saw what it led to. And now, your first actions as leader are setting you down the same bad path as the last boss.

Mr. Ren, as you start to figure out the next steps for the First Order after your latest defeat to a startup, perhaps you might stop to do a little reflection.

Supreme Leader Snoke’s Big Mistake

Supreme Leader Snoke, like so many other leaders of big organizations, made the mistake of building a fear-based management structure that ultimately caused his own demise.

Please understand, that Snoke also came from a long line of old-school leaders that think of themselves as a “boss” not a “leader.”

In fact, where General Organa is the kind of leader that sits with her troops, sharing the same space and not raising herself up on a pedestal, Supreme Leader Snoke (and presumably yourself, now) literally sits on a high throne and only deigns to see those who are summoned before him. That kind of thinking devalues and discounts all your people and reminds them of just how dispensable you thi they are.

Sure, a large organization can be successful for some period of time with this mentality, but typically what happens is that (1) the organization either rots from within because of the corrosive nature that a culture of fear and backstabbing breeds, (2) it gets slaughtered by the small little startup (often made up of folks that leave the organization to become its adversary) that carries a shared vision and works together as a tight-knit unit, or (3) as in the case of the First Order, both.

Isn’t that how you just became Supreme Leader?

Let’s face it, the reason you were able to rise up to your current role is that Snoke’s culture of fear created a situation where he was surrounded by “yes men.” These folks were telling him only what he wanted to hear and failed to alert him to the actual dangers around him. It also caused him to be blind to the person who you were focused on as your “enemy.” The backstabbing culture he created literally caused him to be cut out of the organization (pun intended).

It also caused him to fail to see the most obvious counter-strike-to-come since Daniel-san stood in front of Johnny Lawrence in a crane position. (Look it up, folks).

And while the aftermath of the Resistance’s stunning blow to the First Order was not felt by the leadership - as so often is the case as the leadership of such organizations remain unscathed by their own actions while causing tremendous pain to others - the blow was significant to the thousands of lives that were lost due to the hubris of your so-called leadership.

But you are now in control, Ren, so make a choice - if you continue to treat the people in your organization as dispensable, you will never have a team that works for the good of the organization and allows it to continue to propser. Instead you will have an organization known for in-fighting and back-stabbing and you best watch your back (just as every Sith Master before you has had to do).

The organization you’re building is big, but is it anything that you’ll be proud of and will it last? “Sure,” people will say, “you can make a living working there, and the benefits might be okay - but you’ll hate yourself for every moment you’re there.”

If that’s the organization you want to have - so be it, but I sure wouldn’t want to be there. Or, maybe, I’ll stay there just long enough to learn some valuable skills and where all your vulnerabilities are and then go join an organization that wants to have my talents, such as the Resistance (like Finn did, or if you’re a history buff, Galen Erso).

Lessons from the Jedi Master, himself

Before I close this letter, General Organa and Supreme Leader Ren, there is one place you can both look to find an excellent role model for the next stage of your respective organizations: Luke Skywalker.

Please note that I said an “excellent role model,” not a “perfect model.”

Sure, Luke has seen the ups and downs of the Jedi Order both as a startup and a large organization. And through success and failure he has become wise enough to realize that in order for the Jedi to continue, it can neither be run by authoritarian rule nor can it be a cult of personality, an organization of one. Instead, it needs a clear, shared vision, defined operational principles, and a group of strong servant leaders.

Luke was reminded that when he forgot the vision, principles, and importance of servant leadership - instead reverting to authoritarian rule as he stood as judge and executioner over Ben Solo - his actions caused what could have been a key member of the organization to instead rise up and challenge the very thing he was trying to prevent (too soon, Ren?).

Further, Luke fundamentally understood that while he founded the organization, he can no longer be its leader if it is to become a scalable organization. Instead, he has to rely on the culture he fostered and hope that his work has led his people to move forward. He must rely on the shared vision and key principles he established and provide servant leadership that allows new, emerging leaders to foster the organization’s future and help it evolve into the next stage - one that he could neither have built nor even imagined on his own.

While this was painful to Luke - as this new phase of the Jedi grows into something that was not as he originally planned - it is, he understood, a necessary evolution. So he set out to ensure that the new leadership understands and will protect the vision and key operating prinicples that he established and handed to them. Once he did so, Luke was able to hand over the responsibility (and the corresponding authority) to the new leadership, trusting them to work in the best interests of the organization.

Luke allowed himself to remain a mentor and step aside and to allow the leaders he worked so hard to develop to move the organization forward. While he knows that there will inevitably be failures and mistakes, he is satisfied that they will be made in the service of something great.

Master Yoda also understands this and reminds Luke, “the greatest teacher, failure is.” And Yoda is satisfied, as Luke’s mentor, that Luke built the organization to withstand the ups and downs that will come, whether from within or without.

Thus, the Jedi will continue as a scalable and sustainable organization built on the strengths of its vision and principles, even if it is (at least for the moment) small.

The question for you, General Organa and Supreme Leader Ren, is whether you will learn from your recent mistakes or instead continue to do the same things at the continued cost of your peoples’ lives.

Wishing you all the best as you do or do not,

Michael

PS. Do you agree? (Please leave your thoughts and comments below)