10 Leadership Lessons From Clint Eastwood’s Cowboy Movies
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The document discusses leadership lessons derived from Clint Eastwood's iconic western films, emphasizing the importance of strategic thinking, decisiveness, and taking control. Key takeaways include standing up for one's team, knowing when to act, and being prepared to move on when necessary. The author, Andrew Wood, combines insights from Eastwood's characters with personal experiences to explore these valuable leadership principles.
10 Leadership Lessons From Clint Eastwood’s Cowboy Movies
- 2. ”Bout time this town had a new sheriff.” With the exception of John Wayne, who many younger people may not have seen, no one did ‘cowboy’ like Clint Eastwood. His iconic portrayal of the Man with No Name in a string of low budget westerns, later called “Spaghetti westerns” launched him to superstardom and created one of the most endearing franchises in movie history. Later in such classics as The Outlaw Jose Wales, Pale Rider and the Unforgiven he continued to entertain us while delivering some classic lessons in leadership.
- 3. #1 Never Volunteer Information That Does Not Advance Your Cause A stranger rides into town with a black hat and a poncho, ties his horse to the pole. The man says, “I didn’t catch your name.” The stranger looks back at him, strikes a match, lights a cigar, and says quietly, “I didn’t give it.” No one in movie history made more money saying less on screen than the man with no name, Clint Eastwood. In these days of social media—Facebook Twitter, YouTube live video—in constant use, sometimes it’s better, as the Chinese say, to keep the tiger behind the bamboo and say little about yourself while finding out more about your advisory.
- 4. #2 Always Stick Up for Your Gang In a Fistful of Dollars, Clint rides into town and is taunted by a gang of thugs shooting around his mules hoofs and laughing a she bolts off. Clint grabs a pole above his head and walks back to the men. "My mule don't like people laughing. He gets the crazy idea people are laughing at him," As a leader, you must stand up for yourself and the organization you lead. Be stubborn about it.
- 6. #3 Don’t Be Afraid to Take Control In High Plains Drifter, Clint immediately takes control of the town cowering in the face of an outlaw gang about to be released from jail. In one memorable scene Clint pins a badge on his pint-sized friend "Bout time this town had a new sheriff." Leaders must take the lead, take charge and set the direction which Clint quickly does as he marshals town people and defenses.
- 8. #4 Think Strategically Whether it’s painting the town red and changing the name to Hell as he did in High Plains Drifter, blowing up the bridge in the Good, the Bad and The Ugly to save lives or the clever use of game strategy, at the end of the move to win the prize, Clint was always thinking strategically.
- 10. #5 Always Act Decisively In all of Clint’s movies he acts decisively usually with devastating effect. Never one to look for trouble but nor does he shy away from it. He knows instinctively that a situation deferred will only fester and grow and that acting decisively now will be the best course in the long run. As exemplified in the Outlaw Jose Wales when a street vendor recognizes him and blurts out his name in front of four Yankee soldiers, all aware theirs a large bounty on his head. Wales stares them down as they ponder what to do next, “Well, you gonna pull those pistols or whistle Dixie?” Seconds later all four are dead.
- 12. #6 Use Icons to Build Your Brand As the man with no name, had his poncho and ever-present cigar. In one of the few tender moments in the classic Spaghetti Western The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Clint Eastwood’s hard-bitten, unnamed bounty hunter comforts a dying Confederate soldier. Having covered the young man with his coat, the Man With No Name takes the soldier’s poncho, which becomes an iconic prop in the rest of Eastwood’s “Dollar” Westerns with director Sergio Leone. Eastwood bought the poncho other wardrobe essentials in California before shooting the movies in Italy and Spain and apparently never washed it once though the following three movies. You might not know the name Ennio Morricone, but he was in a big way part of Clint Eastwood’s rise to stardom, with his haunting soundtrack for the spaghetti western series. With just a few notes of its twangy tones— “wha wha wah”—instantly Clint springs to mind, even fifty years later.
- 14. #7 Pick Your Battles In The Outlaw Josey Wales, a bounty hunter walks into a dark saloon in a small, dusty town and confronts Josey Wales. “Are you a bounty hunter?” asks Wales, with a hint of contempt. “A man’s got to make a living,” says the bounty hunter, almost apologetically. Wales replies, “Dying ain’t much of a living, boy!” Wales suggests that they don’t have to fight, that he can just ride on out, and for a minute he does turn and walk out of the saloon. But a few seconds later, he’s back, says he just had to come, Wells acknowledges the inevitable, and they both draw, with Wells shooting him dead with a single shot! How many of us react just like the bounty hunter—out of pride, misplaced duty, self- justification, rules, anger, fear, or revenge? Picking battles, we simply don’t have to fight. Battles that consume our time, money energy, emotions, good senses, and even our lives.
- 16. #8 Use Game Strategy to Increase Your Odds of Winning The final scene of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly brilliantly demonstrates game strategy. There are three men in a triangle in a graveyard, each with a gun, and a rock at the center of the three. Clint has supposedly put a name under the rock that holds the key to a buried cache of confederate gold, but can the other two trust him? Has he actually written the correct answer? As Lee van Clief and Eli Wallach look around, they realize they can’t be sure that Clint has written the correct answer on the rock; therefore, neither of them can shoot Clint if they want to be sure of getting the gold—which means they will shoot each other.
- 17. Continued… What they don’t know is that Clint has given one an unloaded gun. Clint can ignore this one. The one Clint has to worry about will try to kill the one with the unloaded gun. Neither will fire at Clint. Clint will fire at the one with the loaded gun. The situation is tense. The camera pans back and forth slowly from long shots to tension- filled close ups of their eyes. Then, as Clint has figured, the guy with the loaded gun shoots at the guy with the unloaded gun, and Clint shoots the guy with the loaded gun. Game over. The game was actually over before it started. Clint sets up a situation where each evaluates his possible moves, but in reality, Clint has already won the game. The players made the best decisions based on the information available to them, and somebody manipulated the information available to them.
- 19. #9 Do Whatever it Takes to Get The Job Done Near the end of the Outlaw Josey Wales, he is holed up in a small cabin and surrounded by twenty men. Wales tells his handful ragtag followers, “Now remember, things look bad and it looks like you're not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. 'Cause if you lose your head and you give up then you neither live nor win. That's just the way it is." A leader must be ready to do whatever it takes to get the job done. It's a leader's job to ensure that this, readiness, motivation and clarity of purpose permeates the entire organization.
- 21. #10 Know When it’s Time to Ride Out of Town and on to a New Opportunity The job is done, the bad guys are dead, the good guys free to carry on living in peace and now it’s time to ride into the sunset in search of new adventures. This is a theme in many of Clint’s movies like High Plains Drifter and it’s a great metaphor for life. Cowboys instinctively know in their gut when it’s time to ride away from a town, a job, a woman, or a fight. People, in general, do not. They continue to work in jobs they hate, stay involved personal relationships that have long since soured, and live in towns that have entered a slow, agonizing decline. People just hate to admit it’s over. The marriage, the job, the business, or the town—yet all would be far happier six months from now if they had the courage to move to the next phase of their life.
- 22. Andrew Wood is the co-author of Cowboy Wisdom- Classic Lessons in Leadership and Life. Despite being born in Oxford, England, Wood always had a love of everything Western and studied the biographies of all the West’s famous characters. Partnering with world-renowned horse trainer and former rodeo cowboy, Pat Parelli the two mix their experience of building multi-million dollar companies with classic lessons from famous Western movies. The result is a thought-provoking, insightful and entertaining look into the leadership and life skills that matter. Order Now www.classiccowboywisdom.com Share this slideshow with your friends!