Welcome back to another edition of my “Leadership Lessons from 80s TV” non-award-winning blog! Today’s Leadership Lesson comes from The Greatest American Hero! Please tell me you’ve heard of this show. While it never became as popular as The A Team or Magnum P.I., it was an excellent series.
Here was the concept: Aliens from space decided that mankind needed someone with super powers to help fight off all the evil that was growing in the world. (I know…it sounds awesome already, doesn’t it?) The aliens found schoolteacher Ralph Hinkley, played by William Katt, and FBI agent Bill Maxwell, played by Robert Culp. In the dead of night in the California desert, an alien spacecraft lands, gives a Super Suit to Ralph, along with an instructions manual, and then flies away.
After accepting that what they had just witnessed was actually real, Ralph and Bill headed off to start the next chapter of their lives – fighting crime with super-human abilities. There was just one problem. In all their excitement, they left the instructions manual behind. Sure, they went back to the desert to find it, but to no avail. And this, my friends, was the hook of the show. Ralph and Bill would chase down bad guys using Bill’s FBI ties, and Ralph would catch them…or at least try. Not knowing exactly how to use his suit, Ralph provided the comedic portion of this action packed classic. He would sometimes forget how to fly midflight and crash land. Other times, he would forget how to stop running at super-speed and smash into a brick wall. Other times, his invisibility would run out at the most inopportune times. In short, if there was a way for them to mess up, they found it.
Yet in the midst of all of this klutziness lies this week’s Leadership Lesson. You see, Ralph and Bill could have realized they lost the instructions manual and just quit. Why bother going through all the effort when you don’t know exactly what to do or how to do it? But they chose to move forward. They didn’t know how. They didn’t have much guidance. They weren’t 100% sure they’d be successful. But they chose to move forward nonetheless.
That’s what the great leaders do. They take the information they have, however scarce it may be, make the best-informed decision they can, and move forward. It’s rare for a leader to have all the information he or she needs to make a decision. Don’t take my word for it. Ask anyone you know in leadership. Often times, the leader doesn’t have much to work with, but that doesn’t stop him or her. Simply put, he or she takes whatever intelligence he or she can gather and makes an educated decision on what is known at the time. Leaders can’t just wait around for more material. Unfortunately, they usually don’t have that luxury. Leaders also don’t just delegate to avoid a tough decision. Leaders move forward. Adjustments may be made after the decision is, and this is often the case. But leaders move forward.
So take a page out of the book of The Greatest American Hero. The next time in your life when you’re faced with a decision to make, don’t overthink things. Don’t stress. Simply use the information you have at the time, make the decision, and (you guessed it) move forward!
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