Leadership Lessons from Napoleon Dynamite

Napoleon Dynamite was released 20 years ago and was wildly successful, especially considering its tiny budget. The first time I saw it, I thought it was pretty dumb. But I must admit, it’s grown on me over the years. I recently watched it with my family and thought it was hilarious. I declared right in the moment, that I would be Napoleon Dynamite for Halloween.

And, of course, you all know I like to draw leadership lessons from pop culture, and I hadn’t yet explored this masterpiece. So, here we go.

What are you gonna do today, Napoleon?

Whatever I feel like I want to do. Gosh!

Napoleon was an awkward teenager. He was awkward at school and awkward at home. He didn’t fit in anywhere, so he did what he wanted to do. Unrestrained by anyone else’s expectations, he had some freedom. What to do with that freedom took some exploration.

Early in the film, Napoleon seems obsessed with skills. It’s a topic that keeps coming up and shows how misguided he is.

Napoleon and his brother, Kip, learned about the Rex Kwon Do Self-Defense System, which promised “the strength of a grizzly, the reflexes of a puma, and the wisdom of a man.” Instead, they learned that nobody “wants a roundhouse kick to the face while I’m wearing these bad boys.” Napoleon and Kip agreed that it was a rip-off.

Napoleon befriended a new kid in the class, Pedro. When showing him around he said, “You know, there’s, like, a boat-load of gangs at this school. This one gang kept wanting me to join because I’m pretty good with a bo staff.”

Before long, they were discussing asking girls out to an upcoming dance. Napoleon lacked confidence because he didn’t have any skills. When Pedro asked him to elaborate, Napoleon said, “You know, like nunchuck skills, bowhunting skills, computer hacking skills, girls only want boyfriends who have skills!”

Pedro reminded Napoleon that he was pretty good at “drawing animals and warriors and stuff.” Napoleon acknowledged that he was probably the best he knew of.

Pedro encouraged Napoleon to draw a picture of the girl he liked and to give it to her as a gift. Trisha was the lucky recipient of his labor of love, which took him “like three hours to finish the shading on her upper lip.” Trisha wasn’t impressed, but her mom made her go to the dance with Napoleon anyway.

It’s easy to miss the leadership lesson here because we just take in the silly laughs from scene to scene. Here’s the lesson so far: In Napoleon’s coming-of-age story, he’s trying to figure out what he’s good at. He knows that skills are important, so he either completely embellishes his skills or works on developing skills that don’t matter, like tetherball.

Most of us reading this article are working professionals. Most of us figured out what we were skilled at long ago. However, if we’re honest, this was anything but straightforward.

I’ll share my story briefly. Growing up, I didn’t think I had any technical skills at all because I compared myself to my older brother who was (and still is) a computer genius. My first vocational pursuit was ministry. After a year of Bible college, I decided that wasn’t the job for me. It was a crisis of vocation, but not a crisis of faith. Then, in a fortuitous moment, a guy across the hall in my dorm told me that I had pretty good computer hacking skills and suggested I switch majors to computer networking. I can’t remember his name, so let’s call him “Pedro” for fun. I thought about it for 15 minutes, then decided to go for it.

Then for the next 7 years, I just wanted to be a good systems engineer. I had no aspirations for leadership, and I thought of myself as the furthest thing from a corporate executive. Then, one of the gangs realized I was pretty good with a bo staff… No that’s not right… I was pretty good with leading staff, so I got an opportunity to do that. The rest is history.

Skills are important. But Napoleon needed to find the right fit. It wasn’t until the end of the film that he discovered and developed the skill that truly set him apart: Dancing.

Skills for their own sake are good, but what Napoleon needed next was a good purpose to put them to use. This was not immediately obvious.

“Pedro offers you his protection”

Around then, Napoleon was working hard as Pedro’s unofficial campaign manager for class president. They employed as many of their skills as they could muster, especially the bad ones. Napoleon drew ugly campaign posters. They even enlisted Deb’s skills in the campaign. She made boondoggle key chains and even recommended the perfect wig for Pedro to cover up his spontaneously bad haircut decision.

Napoleon emphasized Pedro’s other skills which weren’t really skills at all, like his ability to grow a mustache, and “protection” offered via Pedro’s older cousins who cruised around and intimidated anyone who bullied those who supported Pedro’s campaign.

None of these efforts worked to generate much support for Pedro as a class president candidate. Summer was most certainly going to win.

There’s a leadership lesson here. Somewhat independent from the search for skills, is the search for purpose. Napoleon found his purpose. He wanted to help his friend win the class presidency. We too, need to find our purpose.

To be honest with you all, in the early years of my career, I wasn’t very purpose-driven. I wanted to work in a job where I could develop my skills in a good company culture. That’s all that mattered to me. I really enjoyed my tenure at my first real corporate job at GMAC-RFC. Never heard of it? That’s okay. I’ll tell you what we did: We bought subprime mortgages and sold them as securities on Wall Street. That culminated in the 2008 mortgage crisis, and the company eventually went bankrupt.

Then I moved my career to Wells Fargo, but I still wasn’t purpose-driven. It wasn’t until I reached mid-career that I started to question what I was working for. Chasing that question eventually led me to CHS, where I work for the farmers. I find our purpose of creating connections to empower agriculture very intrinsically motivating. As a quick shout-out to the farmers we serve, one of the more obscure, but hilarious scenes in the movie is the FFA competition.

Napoleon had his purpose. He wasted plenty of time employing his fake skills, but at the climax of the film, he had an opportunity to showcase his real skills to the world, in support of his purpose.

This took incredible courage. You can feel the tension in the film at this point. Of course, as you all know, he just went for it, and the class burst into immediate celebration.

If you need to relive that glorious moment, watch it here. If you’d like to see my attempt to recreate it yesterday, watch this.

Here’s my final leadership lesson from Napoleon Dynamite. Magic happens at the intersection of real skills and real purpose. Bad skills and effort don’t cut it, even if the purpose is genuine. Great skills and no purpose leave you empty and searching for more. If you have no skills and no purpose today, that’s okay, but you better work to figure it out.

But here’s the real hard truth: Operating at the intersection of real skill and real purpose takes courage. You have to believe in yourself the way Napoleon believed in himself at the end of the film, not like how he bragged in the beginning about wielding a bo staff. You must show your real skills to the world because it matters. It matters because your purpose is worthy. All of the external excuses fall away, and the world becomes a better place.

Napoleon Dynamite is a light-hearted, goofy film. It’s Friday, so if you’re looking to watch something fun and inspirational tonight, why not cue it up? As for me, I hope you can see that I have a passion for developing and inspiring leaders. I hope you know that it takes a bit of courage on my end to put my writing skills to work and put it out there for all of you to see. In my own way, when I hit that “publish” button, I feel a bit like Napoleon stepping out onto that stage. In the end, I hope it makes a difference because the purpose matters.

Read this article on my blog site or listen to it on my podcast🎙️