My family loves to watch Marvel movies: The adventures of Thor, Iron Man, and the Guardians of the Galaxy are an endless source of fascination an entertainment.
My kids have figured out that the standard Marvel Plot looks like this:
- Our Hero is living a worry-free live.
- Something devastating occurs.
- Our Hero’s problem solving skills are put to the test.
- Something more devastating happens.
- The situation is universally hopeless.
- Our Hero does something exceptionally heroic.
- All is well.
- Rinse and repeat for the next movie.
I realized that there is a subtle message hidden in this standard plot: Solving problems, being heroic and saving the day is the gateway to success.
This is a great approach for entertainment, but it won’t work if you want to build high-performance teams.
Heroic leaders are those leaders who love to step in and solve problems for others. However, they forget that the most important job of a leader is to create a success environment for their team members to solve problems themselves. This is how organizations grow and people develop.
The secret to heroic leadership is therefore to become a hero catalyst: Judge your leaders based on how many heroes they have created in their teams.