This week’s prompt asks:

Who do you consider a leader? This person(s) you think of need not be a head of state or a CEO. What specific characteristics about that person make her such an effective example of a leader? Keep this person in mind while you’re reading and writing — let me know if you think of someone else who exhibits qualities of a leader or how you come to see this person’s choices and behaviors more analytically.

Recently, I watched The King’s Speech, and while reading about leadership these past two weeks, I was struck with how often I was reminded of the characters from that movie.

Before getting started, however, if you haven’t watched The King’s Speech, please consider doing so. It is a phenomenal movie with an impeccable cast and a story that was so clearly written with love. Spoilers are inevitable here, I apologize.

The King’s Speech is a 2010 movie based very closely on history about King George VI (Prince Albert in the beginning of the movie) and his speech therapist Lionel Logue. King George VI was plagued by a speech impediment from early childhood, and throughout his life, no therapies were found to work. He met Lionel Logue through the efforts of his loving wife, and with Lionel’s then-controversial and wildly different technique, Prince Albert comes to find relief. This becomes ever-more-important, as King Edward VIII abandons the throne for the love of a divorced American right as England is thrown back into conflict with Hitler’s rise to power. Now a ruling monarch in the highest days of radio, King George has a great burden to bear — heartening the citizens of England in the comforts of their sitting rooms while simultaneously battling a crippling disability. It’s a delightfully kindhearted and funny movie with such central themes as kinship and the ability to overcome. Throughout, there are hints at the types of leadership and authentic communication that the book describes in chapter 9.

The brother to Prince Albert, King Edward VIII, very much exemplifies trait leadership. He is born into it, and he’s expected to flourish. In some ways, he succeeds — he’s charming, handsome, and daringly forward, and the people adore him. The movie makes it seem like the English people see him as what a young king should be. But with war at the door, and with his lover unavailable to him for marriage by a ruling in the Church of England, he begins to falter. He abandons his duties, leaving the throne to his brother, Albert.

Albert had some of the traits expected of a leader. He was tall and elegant, educated, sophisticated, and of royal blood. But his difficulty with speech causes him much discomfort. The movie portrays a younger Prince Albert as a shy but kind man who speaks very little and loves very deeply. As he grows into the role of King of England, and as his work bears fruit with his physician and later friend Lionel Logue, he exemplified, to me, two kinds of leadership — situational and transformational.

When thrust into Kinghood, Prince Albert had enormous concerns laid upon him. He was coming into a country that was staring down the throat of another great war. He had great difficulty speaking, yet he was expected to hearten and inform a nation that would soon be enduring true hardship. And yet he took on the role with dignity and with much effort — he and his therapist Lionel began to work double-time to prepare him for his tasks ahead. This, to me, exemplifies the qualities valued by situational leadership. He responded to the tasks placed before him: give speeches, become king, lead a nation as it declares war, and then hearten a nation as it endures war. This he did by adjusting his life’s efforts to better-position himself for the changing roles. It also resembles the discussion points for transformational leadership, as he needed to move his charges, his organization, forward through the tremendous hurdle that is war.

Then, there is Lionel Logue. An Australian thespian with a gift for working through speech impediments, he evokes surprising and effective methods to help his patrons learn to speak with clarity and confidence. His leadership was best explored, to me, through the leadership style approach. Here, a range of styles is explained by varying both the amount of concern for patrons and the amount of power exercised over patrons. Logue must constantly vary where he sits on this spectrum; the movie shows us just how different many of his patrons are. He must be charismatic and fluid; he must know just how to interact with his patrons to lead them to improvement. The only method for leadership dissection that was varied enough and fluid enough to describe this man’s great work was the leadership style approach.

There are many other characters in the movie that express traits of leadership. Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, King George VI’s wife, was a phenomenal character with vast depth and enormous wit. She displays leadership traits whenever needed and appropriate. Then there’s King George V whose short appearances have leadership written all over them. But this is perhaps enough for now.

Then, there is the idea of authentic communication. King George VI needed not only to deliver speeches but to deliver them with earnest emotion — his task was to keep the heart of his people. To do this, he employed several of the methods the book describes.

He was modest. The enormous amount of work he had to do just to deliver a speech combined with the fact that his people knew of his disorder kept him in a state of dignified humility. The movie emphasizes this very expressly.

He absolutely needed to create and describe a vision for the future — a future where German oppression no longer plagued Europe. This he had to convey with simple and accessible language while maintaining meaning and connection — his speech writers surely had their work cut out for them! But it was ultimately his delivery of the product that would bring courage to a warring country. Similarly, he had to be able to inspire as he spoke.

To perform the tasks placed before him, King George VI needed to invoke several of the elements of authentic communication as conveyed in chapter 9.

All technical comparisons aside, it was a wonderful story. The characters were hearty and kind but flawed and real — there were no painted too-perfect faces. It was just a heartening movie.

words: 1087

Source:

The king’s speech [Motion picture]. (2010). Paramount.