The Hobbit: An Unexpected Leadership Journey

by Doug Guthrie

I have been writing and lecturing a good deal recently about leadership, focusing on aspects I feel are often crowded out by the charismatic personal traits that draw admiration and are frequently mistaken as a necessary quality of leadership. Instead I have focused on humility, trust, perseverance, creativity and the simple desire to step up and take on a challenge and make the world a better place.

With these thoughts in mind, I saw the movie version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. The book is a literary treasure of childhood, an adventure story with dwarves, wizards and elves in a world beyond conventional imagination. As a child, I read the epic fantasy with an undisguised affection like so many others. What I didn’t understand back then was that The Hobbit is also an allegory about leadership, a legend that holds many insights for today’s leaders, even for those not initiated into Middle Earth legend.

Peter Jackson’s film version of the book, “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” has been high on my list of movies to see this holiday season. Jackson was a wizard in his own right with the production of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, and everyone has been waiting to see what magic he would bring to a cinematic retelling of The Hobbit.

I’ll steer clear of any judgments about the quality of the movie—or its faithfulness to the source material—because I’m more focused right now on what it shows us about leadership. The central characters—the wizard Gandalf, the hobbit Bilbo and the dwarf Thorin—each take a turn at being a leader, exhibiting their own unique and sometimes problematic approaches to leadership.

The main story has a motley crew of 13 dwarves, Bilbo and Gandalf trekking across Middle Earth to best Smaug the Dragon and to reclaim the dwarves’ ancestral homeland. (I know this smacks of a geeky whimsy and outlandish fairytales, and it’s hard to see a connection to corporate America, but give it time.)

Gandalf is the obvious leader…at first. He understands the dynamics of teams, and he sees the value of bringing the dwarves together with naïve and diminutive Bilbo, who seems an unlikely addition for a dangerous, life-changing journey. But Gandalf knows what the dwarves and even Bilbo doesn’t, that there is greatness within him and that his skills will be indispensable to the team in completing its mission.

One of the traits of creative leaders is their ability to understand complexity and alignment within an organization, as well as its relationship to nurturing and sustaining dynamic organizations and creative leaders. In this sense, Gandalf is the master leader. He and he alone understands the complexity of the journey the fellowship is undertaking, and his early, insightful leadership is essential to bringing together a band with skills that align to the expedition.

My view of leadership is built on the idea that everyone at every level in the organization has the potential to be a leader; that only by mastering complexity—both human and organizational—will leaders be able to achieve alignment; and that leaders must know themselves, alert to their failings and graces, to better serve the organization and to build trust.

It came as no surprise to me that I would find the traits of creative leaders in the characters in the film (I knew the book, of course), but I was pleased to see how beautifully rich the lessons of leadership could be when played out against a backdrop of Middle Earth where wolves and trolls wait at every turn. Undoubtedly, the same might be said of corporate America.

For this first film in the trilogy, Thorin turns out to be more archetype of a leader-gone-wrong than an example of clever and sustainable leadership. Certainly he is the leader who starts the journey, driving it forward by the force of his personality, his passion for the quest and his loyalty to his crew. But as he begins to take a series of wrong turns, endangering his team because of his own hubris, spite and greed, it becomes clear that he is the leader who must rise and fall and rise again.

There are always lessons to be learned from failed leadership, and especially for the unsuccessful leader. I suspect that as the trilogy goes forward we will see Thorin forced to confront his own shortcomings of character. In fiction, we can have tragic figures that redeem themselves with great acts of sacrifice. In corporations, we’d prefer to avoid those kinds of failures, and would choose instead a leader who is able to acknowledge when he or she is wrong and to rectify the failure or injustice.

Of the three main characters, Bilbo is the quintessential hero. I believe that creative leaders are forged in the day-to-day work of organizations, not simply born or gifted with their strengths and talents. In that way, the organization or the journey, both in character and complexity, becomes a critical ingredient in achieving any success as a leader. For Bilbo that is certainly true.

Ultimately Bilbo rises to the occasion, despite the fact that his colleagues don’t always think he’s up to it and that he spends a good deal of time whining about his circumstance. He takes a fair amount of ribbing for his early performance on the team, but he eventually earns the right to be on the quest. He displays his cleverness with Gollum, and he helps rescue his teammates in the fiery trees. Even the dwarves begin to realize that the meekest member of their company is a leader in his own right.

That’s why creative leaders are more than individuals with vision. They are key players in their organizations who take the time to assess the group and the situation to come up with novel solutions. They see beyond the apparent limits, even in themselves, to seize opportunity.

The film is about a hero’s journey, but what I like about it most is that there are many heroes in the story. A single hero does not stand above everyone else at all times. This truly reflects my own thinking about the critical nature of giving everyone inside an organization—or on a journey—the opportunity to be their own hero or leader. An organization that encourages creative leadership at every level is more likely to find success than failure, whether in producing a product or embarking on a journey to change the world, even the world of Middle Earth.

Fuente: Forbes