Just about 32 years ago (February 17, 1989 to be exact), the movie Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure was released in theaters. It's an entertaining movie starring the actors, Keanu Reeves and Alex Winters as two teenage "slackers" who travel back in time to meet historical figures for their high school history class. Believe it or not, there are leadership lessons here!
The story begins far into the future in the year 2688 in a utopian society based upon the music and philosophy of the Two Great Ones, Bill S. Preston, Esquire (played by Alex Winters) and Theodore "Ted" Logan (played by Keanu Reeves). Apparently, the utopian future is in peril because of an alternative past - if the two teenage slackers, Bill and Ted fail their history assignment (the only thing that they had apparently learned all term was that "Caesar is a salad dressing dude"), Ted will be shipped off to military school, which will end their fledgling band "Wyld Stallyns" and forever change the course of history. In order to save humanity, the leaders in the future send one of their citizens, Rufus (played by comedian George Carlin) back to the past in a time machine disguised as a telephone booth. Rufus serves as a mentor to the two teenagers as they course through history in search of "personages of historical significance." I won't ruin the story, but I will say that there is a happy ending.
One of the fundamental tenets of the philosophy according to "Bill and Ted" is "Be excellent to each other!" How much better would we all be if everyone followed that recommendation? How much better would the world be if we would all just "be excellent to each other"? The author Robert Fulghum wrote a book in the late 1980's entitled All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten - there is a lot of recommendations and life lessons in this book that could be summarized by saying, "Be excellent to each other" - share everything, play fair, don't take things that aren't yours, clean up after yourself, and say you're sorry when you hurt someone (among many others).
Continuing on this theme, with respect to leadership, Bill and Ted's philosophy best matches what Robert Greenleaf has called servant leadership. As described by Greenleaf, a servant leader is a leader who seeks to be a servant first by caring for the needs of all others around them (see also, "Leaders Eat Last") and ensure the development and professional growth of future leaders. A servant leader, is one who is "excellent" to those whom he or she supports on the team.
If you want a real-world example of how to "be excellent to each other", look no further than this video from the 1998 Golden Globes Award. The actor Ving Rhames won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Miniseries or Television Film for his role as Don King in HBO's Don King: Only in America. When his name was read as the winner, you can clearly tell that Rhames is thankful, proud, and honored to have won the award. As he is shedding tears, he quotes Konstantin Stanislavski and says, "Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art." He then thanks all of the other nominees. And then to everyone's surprise, he asks one of the nominees, actor Jack Lemmon (who had been nominated for his role in the movie "Twelve Angry Men") to come to the stage. Once Lemmon joins him on stage, Rhames stuns everyone and says, "I feel that being an artist is about giving, and I'd like to give this to you." He gives the Golden Globe award to Lemmon, who initially tries to refuse, but eventually accepts it. Lemmon would go on to say that it was "one of the nicest, sweetest moments I've ever known in my life."
Can you imagine a Hollywood actor handing over his first major award - something he has probably worked hard for many years to earn - to someone he thought was more deserving? That, my friends, is what being "excellent to each other" is all about. Simply amazing.
Leadership is all about what you do for others. Above all else, "be excellent to each other!"
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