Welcome to the latest edition of Leadership Lessons I Learned from 80s TV! One of my all-time favorite 80s TV shows was Knight Rider. It featured a pre-Bay Watch, David Hassellhoff. He played Michael Knight, a former cop who was presumed dead, but revitalized and had his face surgically altered so as to not be recognized by any former friends. This made undercover work much easier. All of this was all done by a private task force known as Knight Industries. Their only real cause I can remember was to chase down bad guys. Are you with me so far? Wait…it gets better.
Michael Knight was then assigned a partner with whom to fight crime. Its name was KITT! That’s right, I said its. His partner was a 1982 Pontiac Trans Am. And it talked. And did all kinds of cool things. KITT possessed cutting-edge artificial intelligence. KITT had a molecularly-bonded shell and could withstand almost any attack, including gunshots, fire, and even missiles! KITT had a turbo-boost option, which I really hoped all cars would have by now. (Come on scientists…get on this!) KITT could produce smoke screens, oil slicks, and even a flamethrower! In fact, each episode seemed to introduce a new function KITT had that was used to save the day.
During one of my favorite episodes, Michael was taken hostage by a group of bad guys and beaten up. It took several of them because Michael Knight was just that tough. When they were done with him, they decided to kill him. But in their infinite bad guy wisdom, they planned to make it look like an accident. So they chloroformed Michael to knock him out and shoved him in the driver seat of KITT. (On a side note, 80s TV led me to believe that as an adult, being chloroformed by bad guys would be a much bigger problem than it turns out it really is.) Anyway, back to the story. After putting Michael behind the wheel of KITT, they shifted the car to Neutral and rolled it down a long hill that ended with a 1000-foot drop off of a cliff. The impact of this fall would be sure to kill him.
Once the car started rolling, KITT sprung into action by turning the volume to full blast and yelling at Michael to wake up. You see, herein lied the real problem. KITT could easily have taken command of the vehicle, switched to Drive and brought them to safety. Or KITT could have, at the very least, applied the brakes and stopped them from barreling over the cliff. But…and this is where it got tricky…Michael had to give KITT the order to do so. It was in KITT’s programing. He had to listen to Michael. But if Michael didn’t give the command, there was nothing KITT could do.
So what happened? I know you’re on the edge of your seat waiting to find out. Or you’re a Super Fan like me and you already know the duo’s outcome. Since Michael wasn’t waking up, KITT took matters into its own hands and assumed control of the driving, taking them both to safety and completely avoiding the deadly crash from atop the cliff. KITT ignored the rules. KITT disregarded what it was trained to do in this situation. And in my opinion, KITT showed incredible leadership that day.
You see, leaders, the great ones, know when to break the rules. They know when to use their hearts instead of their heads. This is one of the real differences between managing and leading. What would have happened if KITT would have stayed in its lane and abided by the rules? Michael would have died and KITT would probably have needed some hefty bodywork. But KITT saw a situation where the rules needed bent. The good leaders recognize these situations. The great leaders act on them. This is the hard part. Because breaking the rules or ignoring protocol…these actions typically don’t come without consequences. But again, the great leaders are willing to accept what’s coming to them if what they’ve done is for the greater good of the mission or if it protects others.
Rules are important. Don’t get me wrong. And they shouldn’t be ignored on a daily basis. But the world is also not a black and white place anymore. Maybe it never was. Decisions have to be made in this grey, ambiguous area, most of the time without even having all the facts. The great leaders look at the people who may be impacted and they revisit their mission, and then base their decisions off of these factors. I’m a huge fan of the “Heart Over Head” approach when it comes to leadership. We can easily overthink things, but we can always trust our hearts.
Have a great day today! Laugh hard. Learn more. And lead well!
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