What The Success Of Breaking Bad Teaches Us About Leadership

Breaking Bad is about to enter the second half of its final season, a series that has won much critical acclaim and has become a favorite for many, including me. I can’t think of another show that tackles cringe-worthy topics in such a compelling way. You may have read AMC President Charlie Collier's recent post about why the show deserves to be in the TV hall of fame.

Besides captivating storytelling, Breaking Bad’s success offers some great lessons about leadership and why creativity shouldn’t only be the domain of the creative department. Vince Gilligan may not be the first name that comes to mind when you think of natural leaders, but let’s look at what his experience can teach us.

Don't Play It Safe

It may be a cliché, but I have found that this simple statement holds true: “he and she who dares, wins.” Safe is caring, comfortable, and conventional. That’s fine, but it does not inspire or triumphantly lead the way.

When Vince Gilligan was crafting Breaking Bad, he could have made a number of decisions to make his project an easier sell. He could have chosen a major city for the setting, one that countless viewers would recognize, like Los Angeles. He could have opted for a ‘soft’ or socially accepted drug, one that has already proven to be successful in other shows. Instead, he went for Albuquerque’s suburbia, somewhere that very few of us have, or ever will, experience. He decided to tell a story about meth – an indisputable ugly phenomenon that still troubles the nation, particularly in small cities and rural areas.

Gilligan took a chance and hoped that we would recognize the potential of a great narrative in a meth-cooking chemistry teacher with terminal cancer, a disabled son, and an unfaithful wife. Against most odds, AMC greenlit the series. At face value, Breaking Bad is objectionable, inflammatory and edgy. But again, rather than playing it safe, Gilligan took the path less traveled. The presence of risk alone doesn’t mean you should take it, but leadership recognizes when it’s worthwhile to explore.

Empower People To Play To Their Strengths, Not Yours

Risk taking is not the only time you’ll have to call upon your conviction. You also have to trust that, given freedom, people you lead will naturally find and exploit their fortes. Micromanagement stifles the artistic mind and forces it to second-guess every creative decision with apprehension.

I recently read a story in which Gilligan and the star of the show, Bryan Cranston, revealed that the writers were undecided for months as to how they wanted to bring about the conclusion of the show. But then “at a certain point, you stop and say, let’s just tell a good story,” said Gilligan. People need guidance and they need direction, but that alone isn’t enough. Leadership understands that you can’t force people to work to your strengths and should trust (until proven wrong) that they know what they’re doing.

Constrain Yourself

There’s a reason why Twitter won’t allow us to divulge more than 140 characters at once, why TV shows are made to adhere to a 30 minute or 60 minute format and why looming deadlines (like this LinkedIn post) spur us to think and create faster and better. In short, constraints challenge us.

Gilligan tipped his hand and set the limitations for the series’ narrative when he famously said that Walter White’s journey on the show was that of turning “Mr. Chips into Scarface.” From that point on he confined the show, but in doing so he forced the writers to be as creative as possible within their newfound boundaries. Freedom is an important part of the creative and business worlds but good leaders know how to channel that freedom into a shared goal.