While I have some minor qualms with Bruce Peabody’s new book Wicked Leadership in Film, overall, I thought the book was interesting, enlightening and utilitarian in its comprehensive diagnosis of a particular category of issues and leaders. Peabody’s focus is one I’ve never even heard about, what he calls “wicked problems.” He defines “wicked problems” as “a class of important, entrenched, and far-reaching political and social problems,” problems that are difficult if not impossible to resolve because they are so “complex” and “resistant to solutions” (viii-ix). I suspect that most of us can immediately come up with what those problems are, e.g., poverty, overpopulation, crime, universal health care, climate change and other ecological crises, racism, sexism, “surging hyper-partisanship,” “conspiracy theories and conspiracism” (x), and so on. As Peabody stresses, “most of the time, a wicked problem must be managed, not defeated. It is a kind of chronic condition rather than a one-off injury” (x).
Peabody’s focus is not just on “wicked problems,” but how “leaders” in various historical contexts deal with them. He focuses on four types of “wicked leaders,” “reconstructive,” “orthodox-innovators,” “disjunctive,” and “preemptive.” Each of these types of leaders represent historical situations that are either conducive to a “wicked leader’s” attempt at dealing with “wicked problems” or limit their ability to do so, to one degree or another.
As we might imagine, and as Peabody smartly pinpoints, why these “wicked problems” are so difficult to resolve for “wicked leaders” is not just because of their innate complexities. One specific reason why “wicked problems” are difficult to resolve is because of the many conflicting (opposing) individuals (ideological pundits, moneyed interests, opposing party politicians) who either have stakes in maintaining the status quo or use these “wicked problems” for their own ulterior (self) interests. Further, “wicked problems” in themselves connect to numerous other “wicked problems” and thus that too becomes a deterrent for leaders to even risk tackling them, because of the additional compounding issues that come with addressing them. In other words, for many reasons, tackling such complex “wicked problems” could result in a lack of tangible results or even a quagmire scenario and thus a loss of one’s leadership position.
One aspect of what Peabody explores here that I find a little lacking is a deeper understanding of how “wicked problems” tend to be “wicked” because their root causes – and thus their solutions – are ideological norms that are very difficult to criticize, much less tackle, and tend to be supported by the very people and leaders who need to address them. Peabody does sort of begin to get at what would seem to be this crucial point when he says this:
More broadly, taking wicked problems seriously threatens familiar procedures, institutions, and political actors, as we come to understand that our usual ways of dealing with problems are insufficient. When ordinary citizens become preoccupied with wicked problems and recognize both their complexity and far-reaching impact, they can start to doubt not just the efficacy of their leaders and the regime’s prevailing ideologies, but their own worldview, questioning whether they still inhabit ‘a rational, orderly system’ (4).
In other words, tackling “wicked problems” could create a “more than one bargains for” scenario, “wicked leaders” potentially opening up the proverbial “pandora’s box” of dealing not just with a societal issue that needs to be addressed but with the concurrent underlying and deeply ingrained root cause of the issue, toxic ideological norms that are resistant to immediate change, because they are seen as natural and normal by most people and not to be questioned much less challenged.
So, for example, many societal ills stem from our most accepted toxic ideological norm, capitalism. In short, capitalism is a predatory, mercenary economic system/ideology that must incessantly and relentlessly pursue more (and more and more) economic growth and profit and wealth accumulation before all else, to the detriment of people and the planet. Such an ingrained system can only induce people and institutions to mirror this way of mercenary thinking and being, thus creating many of our most deeply rooted “wicked problems,” such as poverty, homelessness, crime, addiction, class inequality, extreme disparities of wealth between the so-called “haves” and “have nots,” the growing oligarchic power in our politics, powerful media discourses designed not for “news” but for propaganda and disinformation, and, most alarming of all, climate change and our many other ecological crises.
Though Peabody doesn’t really go deeper into the root causes of these “wicked problems,” what is so beneficial about his book is that it helped me better understand the complex terrain in which these leaders navigate their tenure and situational possibilities, and why leaders don’t even try to address these problems or, if they do try, why they predictably fail. The crucial point that Peabody stresses in this regard is what he calls “political time” (a concept he borrows from the political scientist Stephen Skowronek), the context in which a “wicked leader” works. That is, key to understanding one’s ability to address a “wicked problem” largely stems from how much power a leader actually has, with some “wicked leaders” “inheriting” a regime that is conducive to being influenced versus “wicked leaders” who are injected into a resistant regime pushing back against them at every turn. From these poles, Peabody expertly explores this wide spectrum from which “wicked leaders” operate.
What I most love about Peabody’s book is how he chooses to use film to both explicate and get at the deeper implications of “wicked problems” and the diverse “leaders” who deal with them. In my own work, and the work of many scholars, because film replicates “reality,” it is a powerful way of better understanding so many of the complexities of the human condition and better understand the deeper implications of the many issues that humanity must contend.
Further, studies have shown that people will react emotionally to situations in narrative (realistic) films in the same way that they would in the real world. In this way, when it comes to exploring “wicked problems” in particular, narrative films are particularly more resonating for spectators. Peabody puts it this way: “We often respond to fictional narratives more forcefully than academic analyses, policy papers, or even journalistic accounts of wicked problems and their potential solutions. As Jonathan Haidt notes, the ‘human mind is a story processor, not a logic processor’” (xiii). More pointedly, as Peabody says, films are very much a reflection of the real world and its many conflicts between people, including of course how politicians/leaders navigate their tenure in office and all that entails, including the difficulties with various stakeholders, contested issues, toxic media discourses, and militant opponents. Film is a tremendous way to explore all of this and more, with the ensuing lessons and deeper implications that come with the most complex films. As Peabody sums up, “films are pedagogically useful in allowing us to study wicked and other problems with some level of distance or abstraction, while still helping us to appreciate their emotional, psychological, and material toll on fictional characters” (xiii).
More particularly, Peabody takes selective films and shows how the “leaders” in the films wrestle with “wicked” situations and “wicked problems.” And I appreciate how he doesn’t predictably just focus on films that represent “politics” and “politics” leaders but rather any leader in challenging or impossible “wicked” situations.
In sum, Peabody shows us “what film teaches us about managing wicked problems,” in an age when “wicked problems” seem “particularly abundant, pressing, and dangerous—and especially deserving of our attention” (x).
In terms of how Peabody organizes the film sections of the book, he picks three films to explicate the complexities of these leadership possibilities. For “reconstructive leaders,” Peabody focuses on Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and Jaws. For “orthodox-innovators,” Peabody focuses on The Candidate, Dave, and The American President. For “disjunctive leaders,” Peabody focuses on The Snake Pit, High Noon, and To Kill a Mockingbird. And for “disjunctive leaders,” Peabody focuses on Lord of the Flies, Planet of the Apes, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. While I found some of the film illustrations more convincing than others – most particularly, I didn’t think the satirical The Candidate and the really profound human condition film Lord of the Flies were as useful as the other films – most of Peabody’s film analysis were very demonstrative of each of these categories of leadership, giving readers a vivid rendering of how each of these categories of leadership specifically work.
To give just a sample of Peabody’s analysis/use of these films, my favorite section of the book is his section on “disjunctive wicked leaders.” For this category of “wicked leaders,” Peabody focuses on the most pessimistic “wicked leader” situations, those figures he defines as
affiliated with regimes that offer only ‘failed or irrelevant responses to the problems of the day.’ Individuals in these circumstances are tethered, by choice, duty, or history, to increasingly repudiated political commitments, interests, and ideas…. Disjunctive leaders contend with wicked (and other) problems while moving against the tides of history, attempting to affirm a political order that is outmoded and overwhelmed. They come to be seen as representatives of failure, closely associated with the decaying order they fight to preserve. (61)
In other words, such “wicked leaders” are in a no win situation, part of a failed government/institution/ideology while also still inexorably bonded with it. As Peabody elaborates:
[Disjunctive wicked leaders] understand that the status quo is unsustainable, but they do not have an entirely credible claim for change given their close ties to the declining order. Disjunctive leaders are still leaders, and they must remain active, deploying existing political and legal powers and personnel to confront a host of demands and challenges. But given their association with a foundering establishment, and their shallow individual authority, even the routine decisions of these individuals are subject to reproach and may exacerbate the political system’s growing crisis of legitimacy. (61)
Such “wicked leaders” are in a precarious position, both saddled with “damaged or discredited institutions” but also unable to “make a full break” with it. In this context, they “must find a warrant for action from nontraditional sources” (62).
Again, for this section, Peabody focuses on The Snake Pit (such an interesting choice!), High Noon, and To Kill a Mockingbird. As he articulates so well and as I affirmed above, film (or any visual medium) can both reflect “reality” (and thus give us renditions of “wicked leaders” concretely wrestling with “wicked problems”) and transcend it by giving us a kind of alternative reality that we can contemplate. This chapter was a particularly effective chapter both because Peabody chooses powerful, revealing films but also because it is such a good model for his overall paradigm, in this case how each of these films perfectly encapsulates what he is trying to articulate with this category of a “disjunctive wicked leader,” accordingly, psychotherapist Dr. Mark Kik (Leo Genn) in The Snake Pit, retiring marshal Will Kane (Gary Cooper) in High Noon, and attorney Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck) in To Kill a Mockingbird. In all three cases, these courageous and visionary “wicked leaders” contend with a reactionary environment as they also begin the process of moving in a direction that plants the seeds of breaking with an archaic present.
So, in the case of Kik, he sees his patients as human beings to be genuinely cared about: “[H]e is committed to his patients’ dynamic needs, not institutional protocol” (66). In this way, he empathetically never loses sight of the individual needs of each patient, seeing the way forward into the future where the mentally ill are not a disposable (dehumanized) mass but individuals who need their own specific treatment plans, each according to their needs, each getting the authentic care that a human being should be afforded. However, as Peabody stresses, Kik is situated in a time period when his humane efforts clash with the status quo treatment of the mentally ill, a status quo that stubbornly relies on archaic treatments that dehumanize patients instead of actually giving them the respect and dignity they deserve.
In the case of Kane, he is the epitome of the “wicked leader” who believes in the townspeople (regime) only to be utterly abandoned and betrayed by them, setting the film’s deeper allegory up, how those real life figures who suffered from the Communist witch hunt stemmed not just from the House Un-American Activities Committee but from the larger populace abandoning and betraying them in their hour of need. Peabody sums this up well: “High Noon explores the theme of finding the courage to confront dangers the rest of society ignores or papers over, an ‘anti-McCarthy message’ that got the attention of the House Un-American Activities Committee, which summoned Carl Foreman (the move’s co-producer and screenwriter) to testify” (67). In other words, High Noon presciently explores an archaic “regime” that needed changing in 1952 and still needs changing today, the ever present potential of a toxic ideology poisoning the well of society. That is, the townspeople go from an agentic collective who will do the right thing and collectively engage the dangers to their lives (we know that in a previous crisis, the townspeople stood with Kane against Miller and his men) to “individualistic” (“me”) selves more interested in their own self-interests than working for the collective good of the town. In this context, the townspeople will turn their backs on the one individual, Kane, who remains guided by his principles and (collective) beliefs that any danger to the collective, the town, means acting agentically and collectively against it. Though the allegory here is to the Communist witch hunts of the time – here again, many people turning their back on their fellow Americans just for a self-serving (self-interested) individualism (or misguided allegiance to a toxic ideology) – this message is just so relevant for us today, as too many people choose their own self-interested (hedonistic, consumerism) desires and appetites instead of collectively engaging the many issues that impact their lives and the lives of Others.
The other lesson of High Noon also informs an important aspect of “wicked leadership,” Kane becoming the definitive model of “wicked leaders” we should embrace and emulate. Kane could have turned this betrayal by the townspeople into abandoning his charge to serve and protect his town, but his integrity – his “wicked leadership” – will not let him choose this path and thus he stays to fulfill what he sees as his duty. The film ends with Kane winning the battle but losing something fundamental to his world view – believing in the townspeople, believing in the better angels of humanity – and throws down the “tin star” in bitterness, leaving behind a system/people who perhaps will change in the face of Kane’s monumental risk for them. The deeper and greater hope is that this sacrifice by human affirming Kane (and his independent-minded wife Amy!) will influence spectators to adopt this life affirming way of thinking and being, collectivity and agency being the core need for any healthy and flourishing society.
More pointedly, this High Noon narrative powerfully captures this category of “wicked leadership” (“disjunctive leaders”), as summed up by Peabody:
[T]he circumstances of disjunctive leaders are inherently fraught. The power they derive from their affiliated status is at constant risk because they operate in an environment of deteriorating authority. In the face of this challenge, these figures try to move, sometimes desperately, beyond traditional networks to confront entrenched problems and stave off regime collapse. (73)
In the case of Kane, it isn’t so much a “regime collapse” as it is a “disjunction” between an old world (utopian) order – where the townspeople acted like a “tribal” collective working for the greater good of the town and every individual in it – and a new one. The “new one” is informed by a people who now see themselves as “individuals” pursuing their own self-centered interests, abdicating their agency and loyalty to each other. Peabody cogently puts it this way: “Miller and his men may be dead, but the town still faces the same wicked force that brought the villain back: pluralism (which both divides the community and diffuses its accountability), weak civic virtue, and enfeebled governing institutions overseen by listless and venal leaders” (68).
Even a better example of “disjunctive leaders” is perhaps the quintessential leader in fiction, Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird. The “wicked leader,” Atticus, must reckon with the most impossible “inherited regime,” the racially segregated Jim Crow south. In this situation, Atticus doesn’t just defend an innocent African American man from charges of rape – that is important in itself and can’t be lost in the shuffle – he is also taking on a whole unjust white supremacist system that did this again and again, accuse African Americans of crimes they did not commit, or, indeed, even worse than that, “lynch” African Americans for no reason at all. What makes this environment/situation even more difficult, is that, as Peabody stresses, Atticus is “embedded in and loyal to his community,” that complex scenario where (white) people can be good neighbors and friends and still be products of a white supremacist ideology. That’s what makes Atticus’s impassioned defense of Tom Robinson (Brock Peters) so difficult to watch, because we know that no matter how convincing a case he makes, the outcome has already been established, not to mention that this will be a shattering revelation for Atticus, for now he sees just who and what the larger community he lives in is. In this way, Peabody shows us how
films with disjunctive leaders feature an uneasy outlook and tense tone. Their heroic leaders operate in environments where the prevailing routines, actors, and ideologies are not equal to the problems of the day—but disjunctive figures are reluctant to acknowledge this truth. Although the inherited regimes in these films falter in some of their most basic or routine functions, the crises that will ultimately undo them, and perhaps make way for a reconstructive leader, are mostly on the horizon. These conditions produce wicked leaders who face frustration, exhaustion, and strained relationships with purported allies when they push for even modest changes…. [T]hese factors can lead disjunctive leaders to criticize the regimes with which they are affiliated, perhaps hastening its demise. (73)
Placed in this context, we can better understand the importance of “disjunctive wicked leaders,” leaders who, despite a fundamental inability to change an ideology or a people in a particular time period, forge ahead to engage a “wicked problem” because they are innately change agents who “understand, on some level, that ‘more of the same’ is unsustainable” (74). In this way, we see clearly that fictional (cinematic) “wicked (disjunctive) leaders” are vital for realizing that not changing a toxic way of thinking and being is simply a historical constant at certain points of time. That helps us recognize the sometimes impossible task of progressing a people to a better way of thinking and being. In other words, fictional “wicked disjunctive leaders” such as Kik, Kane, and Finch reflect both the need to see how change is necessary but how progressing to such change is a slow process no matter how dedicated to progressive change a “disjunctive wicked leader” is.
Conclusion
Hopefully, this sample of Peabody’s use of films and his insightful film analysis give an indication of the depth and breadth of his work on this subject of “wicked leaders” and the “wicked problems” that our finest “wicked leaders” must engage.
As I say, the core impressiveness of this book is its comprehensive examination of these topics and then applying an eclectic mix of films to illustrate them. In terms of the former, I’ve only scratched the surface of Peabody’s comprehensive methodology. It isn’t just that he focuses on “wicked problems” and “wicked leaders,” he applies applicable theories to make his case, including “relational theory,” “concurrent problem-solving,” and “political time,” the former two methodologies informing how one can only fully understand “wicked problems” and the “wicked leaders” who tackle them through seeing how these “wicked problems” are “interconnected” with each other and other (tame, critical) problems and how “wicked leaders” must tackle multiple problems at the same time (“concurrently”), prioritizing (tame, critical) problems that are manageable while addressing “wicked problems” from within the context of resources and political cache, which is why “political time” is so important, because “wicked leaders” must understand the context from which they lead and how that will inform just how much change they can bring to “wicked problems.”
Finally, as I also have stressed above, Peabody’s use of film is mostly exemplary, choosing relevant and interesting films that really reflect and register the various “wicked leaders” and the multitude of complexities that they must deal with. Via all these methodologies and uses of films, Peabody offers up an insightful and enriching text. I learned a lot from it and for me that is the best compliment I can give any scholarly work.