Quotes And Leadership Lessons From Disney’s Pocahontas

A Reel Leadership Flashback Article

Disney’s Pocahontas released in 1995 and is an animated romantic musical. Yeah, that’s quite the mix but Disney’s formula works for Pocahontas.

What Disney's Pocahontas can teach about leadership

Telling the story of the American Indian Pocahontas (Irene Bedard) and Captain John Smith (Mel Gibson), you see how two worlds can collide. Pocahontas comes from an American Indian tribe. John Smith arrives on a ship looking for gold. The Indian tribe were a fairly peaceful people. The people John Smith arrived with were ready to kill the savages.

Worlds collide. Love blossoms. And leadership lessons abound.

Quotes And Leadership Lessons From Disney’s Pocahontas

1. Great leaders earn respect:

There were two leaders on the Susan Constant, Captain John Smith and Governor Ratcliff (David Ogden Stiers). The Governor expected and demanded respect from the crew. On the other hand, Captain John Smith earned the respect of the crew.

7 Leadership Lessons Learned From A Recreational Softball League

This year I reluctantly played on a recreational softball league with my coworkers. It’s not something I wanted to do but I joined anyways. I played a few games knowing it would be a great way to connect with my coworkers and get a bit of exercise.

Let me start off by telling you why there was reluctance to join the team. This goes back to my childhood and our local Little League baseball system.

The baseball field was basically in our backyard. I could look over our fence and see the baseball field. The concession stand. The playground equipment. It was a wonderland.

Until I joined the baseball team. Then it became a place of dread.

I’ll be the first to admit. I wasn’t the best ball player. No siree. I pretty much stunk.

10 Bad Leadership Traits You Need To Avoid

Have you ever had a boss that was totally clueless? Never knew what was happening? Or what was the next step to take?

Probably drove you crazy. It’s driven me crazy in the past. He had bad leadership traits.

But reflecting on my own leadership, I know I’ve done things that drove others insane. You probably have too.

Man falling from mountain sign

Image by Matthew Howarth

It’s an easy thing to overlook. We’re so busy leading and taking care of what needs to be done. Missing the cues that we’ve messed up and created a mess is easy.

We need to be careful of this. If we’re not, we’ll drive our team away.

Beware of these ten leadership failures…

  1. Being arrogant: Not much worse than a leader that is arrogant. Unwilling to compromise and come to an equitable solution. And shouting how great you are to anyone and everyone that will listen. You may be knowledgeable but, remember, there’s always someone better than you.