The Reelz Channel just replayed on of my favorite leadership movies, Heartbreak Ridge. The movie stars Clint Eastwood as Gunnery Sergeant Tom Highway. Highway is a weathered, war torn Congressional Medal of Honor recipient who is approaching retirement. He is a stereotypical old school Marine. He’s a tough, no-nonsense guy singularly focused on getting his mission done without much regard for political correctness or internal politics. The movie begins with him putting in a request to return to the unit where his career began.
He is assigned a young, cocky reconnaissance platoon whose members are not quite cut from the same cloth as him. They are undisciplined, unmotivated, under-achievers. There is a hint that their only success to date has been running through gunnery sergeants who couldn’t handle them.
The plot isn’t too surprising. Eastwood whips them into shape and they eventually have great success in a rescue mission of college students in Grenada.
Though predictable, the movie does a better job than most at showing the change that the marines go through under this type of leadership.
One of the first encounters between Highway and his platoon is when he wakes them at 4:00am, an hour earlier than he told them the prior day. They quickly realize that their lives have changed and they are in “hell”. They start offering varying levels of resistance to him.
Shortly after, the team confronts Highway when he orders them to fall out for morning drills. Highway looks confused until “Swede”, a gigantic, muscle-bound Marine, who just got out of the brig (apparently for fighting, possibly even with the prior Gunnery Sargent) steps out from behind the group. The team informs Highway that he’s no longer calling the shots. Swede takes a swing at Highway and the rest is history. Highway blocks the shot, drops Swede to his knees and knocks him out with one punch. The rest of the team immediately falls out. The movie continues with Highway’s tough training and over the top tactics and the team’s hope that this is all just a bad dream from which they will soon wake up.
A key turning point occurs when the team is on a drill against another platoon. They are supposed to serve as a target for another platoon to hone that team’s “superior” skills. Highway will have nothing to do with it. His job is, in his words, “To keep you men alive.” Highway changes the plan and his team successfully ambushes the other platoon. Shortly after, the recon team beats the same platoon in another war game exercise.
While the team is celebrating in their barracks, one of Highway’s peers arrives. The company commander (a young, cocky major who is trying to run Highway out of the Marines) has sent him. The Major wants statements from the recon team regarding Highway’s questionable training practices. The team refuses despite promises of extra liberty and threats of punishment. The gunnery sergeant says, “Don’t you guys want it to be like the old days with nobody messing with you?” The team leader responds, “It seems like nobody is going to be messing with us now.”
That exchange captures the leadership lesson of the movie. This team thought that they had it good. However, while “good” was perhaps easier, it was unfulfilling. The problem is that they didn’t know any better. As a result, when things got tough, the team was ready to walk. Once they saw that they could reach new heights and accomplish things they never thought possible, their attitudes changed. The old “good” life was no longer acceptable. Now that they had a taste of what “good” really looked like and they wanted more. The hard work was worth it and they were ready for more. They didn’t want to go back.
In many organizations, people are encountering a new reality in the workplace. The old “good” life is gone. They can no longer get by just by doing the minimum and staying out of trouble. There are greater expectations and accountability. They have to work harder than ever just to keep up.
In some organizations, the loss of that “good” life is driving down engagement, satisfaction, and morale. In other organizations, it’s having the opposite effect. The difference often relates to how well leaders show people the results of their hard work. When people start to feel meaning and see success in what they do, they will start to embrace the new “good”. The more they achieve, the more they will want to distance themselves from the old life. If they are just experiencing the pain without seeing the results, they are likely becoming demoralized.
Is your organization going through major change? Have things gotten harder for your people? If so, what are you doing to show them a new and better alternative to the “good life” for which so many of them are longing.
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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.
