Inspired by my previous article about managerial lessons we can learn from Marcus Aurelius, I decided to write on the similar topic in respect to important leadership skills we can learn from Captain Maverick (Top Fun).
I cannot help being a bit more personal than usual in this blog post. In my family, Top Gun had always been considered a masterpiece movie, and not only because my father was a pilot. I didn’t quite understand nor appreciate his job enough while I was a child, but now I absolutelly do.
I still remember when he once took me and showed me an airplane he was piloting: it was a MiG-21.
I have a very vivid memory of this occasion. It had been a rainy, foggy day. Everything was gray. It was during the ’90s, which was a very tough period in Serbia. While I had been excited to be taken to see a military ariplane, I wasn’t quite aware of what had been going on in our country. I think I did sense something sinister in the air though. You can imagine the effect all of this had on a 7 year old boy.
Regardless, ever since then, I have had a special love for airplanes and pilots. And now, let’s turn to the topic at hand – lessons captain Maverick teaches us in most recent Top Gun movie (which is a pure masterpiece, just saying).
1) Inspiring the team members to believe in achieving the impossible
Soon after the movie starts, the team of young pilots is presented with what seems to be a mission impossible (pun intended). As the time goes, the task at hand seems even harder and more so unachievable. In a pivotal moment, captain Maverick decides to lead by an example. While everybody is debating how it will not be possible to do it, he takes a ride himself and performs an extraordinary feat of strength, showing his team members that the project at hand can in fact be done.
Instead of focusing on why something cannot be done, Maverick shows that it can.
In this case, we can see the finest act of leading by example: showing others in our team what is required to achieve success. The scene and the message it sends are so powerful, that I felt shivers down my spine. I realized that as a manager and a leader, I have an incredible power to influence my colleagues and provide them with the right resources to reach their career goals, and together with them lead the organization to success.
2) Breaking the rules
I love rules and procedures, but as my career develops and is involving more and more ambiguity, I have come to realize that breaking the rules now and then is not only recommended, it’s a must. Knowing when to do this and how is one of key leadership competencies. After all, there’s a whole book written on the topic.
In the movie, captain Maverick breaks the rules multiple times. First we see it when he decides to risk his own career in order to protect his co-workers, by riding an experimental aircraft and showing that project they were working on is indeed possible.
Maverick performing a low-flyby in experimental aircraft, while agitating his superior.
Source: Twitter
Next we see him breaking the rules when he steals an airplane to demonstrate his team members that mission is achievable, discussed in previous bullet point.
My favorite part though is when captain decides to ignore the rules and changes how the pilot training procedure works. Typically lowest altitude is 1500m, but Maverick says they go as low as 150m or so, because that is needed to beat the odds. His superiors are angry, yet his team members, while initially shocked, love it.
Refusing to follow procedures, Maverick pushes his team members to their limits
Paramount Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection
I admit that “breaking the rules” souds too harsh, especially in corporate world, but for me it means not blindly following everything that comes from the top. I always encourage my own team members to question my methods and suggest better ways of doing things. Rules are needed, but they will often get in the way of creativity, freedom in workplace and generation of new ideas.
3) Believing in his team members
There is one sentence in the movie which I absolutelly love. It’s when Maverick says to his team members something along the lines “The enemy knows how to ride an airplane, same as you. What they don’t know are your limits. I am going to test you and push you over them“. (it’s not the exact quote, but you get the idea). Maverick believes that his team mates can beat themselves and he keeps creating the opportunities for them to do so.
Picture: https://newsexpressus.com/
As a manager, I realized I am able to do the same. One of my responsibilities is to enable my co-workers to move out of their comfort zones, to push them to the edge of it, because that’s where the true development comes from.
Maverick believes in his team members even when they themselves don’t.
This is not always easy to do, as people tend to love equilibrium and resist change, and this is why helping them to start believing that they can do more, is so important.
4) Building a team cohesion
As someone who loves the topic of team effectiveness, I enjoyed how captain builds the cohesion and synergy in his team.
Initially, his methods backfire and they cause a conflict within the team. However, Maverick then does something remarkable: takes his team members to play the (american) football on the beach, and he changes the rules: defense and the offense are happening at the same time (I admit, I have no clue what this means, as I don’t know the rules of this game, but it surely sounds like an interesting twist).
Image: https://screenrant.com/
Playing together in sun-bathed beach generated so much energy in the team and the effect was instantaneous connection between them.
Young pilots are initially adverse towards each other and full of envy and anger, however, as the game progresses, they get more and more relaxed and without being aware, develop a bond among themselves. In this very moment they are able to put their differences aside, and focus on what brings them together.
Building the proper cohesion in the team is one of the most important aspect of team work and I often coach young team leaders in the company that this is something that should be done right at the beginning of the project. Team cohesion is significant predictor of the results team will achieve, regardless of the skills of individual team members. Some prefer to do it unofficially, while others like to use team charters, which are very useful for setting the right team foundations.
Final thoughts
If you still didn’t watch Top Gun, I wholeheartedly recommend it! Even if the topic isn’t appealing to you (military/airplanes/action), I’m sure you will like it (my wife loved it, despite not being attracted to the topic itself), as there are many nice lessons and messages in this movie.
I personally was able to relate a lot and it made me (re)think how I can apply the same lessons to my work. And indeed there’s plenty of room, since Maverick teaches us some universal leadership competencies.
Image: Paramount Pictures Studios
