Among many other good things, I was able to learn a lot of
leadership lessons for the storyline, the rise and fall of leaders, the impact
on their team and in their success in the ultimate goal of survival. This essay
is an attempt to summarize my learning from this great TV series.
Lesson 1: A leader needs to standup for his team.
This lesson was observed many times in the series, for example when Rick (Andrew Lincoln)
goes to bring Glen back in
season 1, going back to school bus for Shane etc. He displayed
team building when he carefully added the 2 prisoners to the group. If I tie
this to corporate world, successful leaders bring in key people from outside or
within the organization to key positions and they stand behind their decisions, support them in every way they can.
Lesson 2: The team needs to have moral ethics.
There was always a character that would talk about moral and
ethics within the TWD team, be it Dale or Herschel, they talked about keeping
the humanity of the group alive in those difficult times. In corporate world,
when everyone is rushing towards meeting the bottom-line goal, if the
organization loses its moral values, that organization is heading towards what I call it as path to another Enron.
Lesson 3: Team should stand up for your leader and each other.
In TWD this was evident when Rick lost his senses after his
wife’s death, his entire team gave him time to heal, covered up for his work
and duties and helped him come out of the loss. In corporate world, you may
encounter phases of your leader or team member is not at their best. If you
have worked with them long enough you should be able to sense this and must act
appropriately to help the other.
Lesson 4: The stronger team survives, the weaker phases out.
On several occasions, Rick’s team had encountered other
people and have always won, while sometimes they suffered heavy losses, for
example – their encounter with the governor. The corporate word currently works
similarly when 2 teams /leaders are competing against each other to win
something, either a promotion or an award or business from client. The team
with strong ties, support of their leader, having moral ethics and motivation
to achieve the goal would win.
Lesson 5: You need to drop bad apples to save the team.
This was very evident when Rick had killed Shane and had to
let go Carol. In corporate world, when you have a team that is
functioning well, you need to save them not just from outside but also from the
insiders. While other department can slow down some of the team progress, the
inner member can do bigger damage like impacting team motivation and morale.
This needs to be handled diligently.
In a nutshell, there are many similarities between the post apocalyptic world shown in TWD and today's corporate world.
