Bond, James Bond

April 13, 2011 by Taylor Studios in Professional & Industry Tips

Mike Donahue is an who has done more than 2,500 hours of one to one coaching sessions and facilitated over 360 group coaching sessions. He resides in Indianapolis where he shares an office with a piebald dachshund named Fiona.


One of the cable TV channels ran a James Bond movie marathon over the weekend. After watching dribs and drabs of a few of them, I decided they highlight two interesting lesson for leaders.

There have been a total of 22 James Bond movies to date; all of them (except the comedy version of “” that starred Woody Allen, David Niven and Peter Sellers) follow similar scripts. In virtually every one of them, a wealth madman develops or steals technology that threatens the entire world and “M” assigns Bond the task of saving the world from destruction. For the first half of the movies, Bond makes love to beautiful women and uses cool gadgets to create mayhem as he closes in on his evil nemesis. The movies come to their explosive endings as Bond and his beautiful accomplice find and destroy the evil nemesis’ secret command center, killing off most of the nemesis’ private army in the process.

In most cases, Bond’s archenemy has just two “direct reports.” One is the guy who develops the technology that threatens the world. When he outlives his usefulness, he’s terminated. The other direct report is the fanatically loyal and stronger-than-a-superhero, second in command. Bond surmounts great odds to finish him off. It’s only after killing the loyal #2 that Bond brings his evil antagonist to an ignominious end and saves the world.

So what are the two leadership lessons of the Bond movies? Here they are:

First, Bond’s archenemy is obsessed by his big, hairy, audacious goal. My favorite leadership sage, , would say that people like these villains don’t just have a cause, they’re so driven that they are “caused by their cause.” Why aren’t we all as driven by a cause (or mission, or vision) as these villains? Most of the people I work with have a cause, but very few are as passionate as the antagonists in the Bond movies.

The second leadership lesson we can learn from these movies has to do with the evil villain’s private army and how bravely these men die. There are no cowards among them. What drives them? I’ve had literally hours and hours of conversations about leadership with Taylor Studios’ CEO, Betty Brennan. She thinks these bad guys are driven by their belief in the leader’s cause. She notes that a leader’s job is to create connectedness, and that communicating your beliefs, mission, vision is an ongoing job that never ends.

It’s more than money that drives these men. In today’s economy, aren’t our most talented workers like the mercenaries who make up the private armies in the Bond films? Their talent allows them to work where they want; they work for you by choice. Can you say that your people are as motivated to follow you as these men, who follow evil leader to the bitter end? If no, why not?