Today, April 26th, is Alien Day. How is that? Well, if you are a fan of the Alien movie franchise, you know that the xenomorphs were first discovered on LV-426. 426 works out nicely to April 26th.

In 1986, Aliens was released. It was a sequel to the 1979 movie, Alien. Aliens is one of those rare cases where the sequel is better than the original. I don’t remember exactly how old I was when I first watched Aliens, but I know for sure that I was too young. It terrified me. I think I had nightmares for a week straight. I didn’t see it again until I was an adult, at which point it became one of my favorites.

Face your fears

Ripley barely survived her first encounter with the xenomorph in Alien. At the beginning of Aliens, she returned to safety, but her post-traumatic stress and damaged reputation kept her from being able to peacefully integrate back into society. Eventually, she decided that she needed to face her fears and head back to LV-426.

Leadership is all about change. Normally we think about who we need to influence to change around us, but it all starts inside of each one of us. No one can follow you as a leader until you face your fears and change from within. Only then can you have the power to influence others to change.

Reluctantly take charge

Ripley wasn’t the leader. She was a civilian consultant embedded in a unit of Marines on a rescue mission. She was only there because she knew the xenomorphs. Early in the mission, the commanding officer, Lt. Gorman, clearly lost his ability to lead his team. Ripley is there the whole time, trying to encourage Gorman to do what he needed to do. Only out of desperation did Ripley take matters into her own hands to save as many of the Marines as possible and get them to safety.

We like to think of leaders as people who are the first to take charge. That’s not always the best approach. Like Ripley, it’s often best to use other forms of influence to encourage those with formal authority to do what is needed. Remember that command and control is a last resort, not a go-to tactic.

Nuke it from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.

After the team regrouped, they formed a majority opinion that it was time to cut their losses and “nuke the entire site from orbit.” Burke, from the corporation that owned the establishment, protested the decision based on the high value of the asset.

As leaders, we often lead well-intentioned, high-cost projects that are going nowhere. We get so emotionally invested in the sunk cost of our efforts that we often fail to see when it’s time to “nuke it from orbit.” Ripley and the Marines had no such attachment to the facilities on LV-426. Sometimes we need to avail ourselves of independent advice, then have the guts to make the hard decision to “nuke it from orbit.”

Game over man, game over!

Unfortunately, the “nuke it from orbit” plan didn’t work out because a xenomorph took out their means of evacuation. The situation went from bad to worse and Private Hudson totally lost his composure, belting out his classic, exasperated line, “game over man, game over!” Ripley didn’t just command him to calm down, she refocused him on what he and the others needed to do next.

People get overwhelmed at work all the time. Big problems or projects can leave people immobilized. At times, this can mount in our team members to the point where they become completely unproductive on the job. This isn’t the time to make demands. Sometimes the big picture is too big and insurmountable. Leaders need to break down the situation into small pieces and tangible next steps. Only then, can overwhelmed team members get back on track and focused. They start feeling the progress, seeing the path and can go back to working independently. This isn’t a shift toward micromanaging, it’s just a quick nudge in the right direction.

They mostly come at night. Mostly.

Ripley and the Marines just encountered Newt, a little girl that has somehow managed to outlive all of the colonists, and most of the Marines, despite the fact that she didn’t have one of those super-awesome M56 Smart Guns that the Marines rocked. Ripley talked to her like a caring mother and listened to her secrets of survival for the advantage of the whole team.

As leaders, we need to look for wisdom in the uncommon places. We love to lean on our education, training, best practices, and experience. Sometimes that’s not enough. We need to be open, humble, and watchful enough to embrace wisdom when we hear it, even if it comes from an unconventional place.

Don’t trust corporate

While it may seem that the xenomorphs are the villains in this film, the real villain is Burke. Burke represents “the corporation” and is a two-faced liar. He makes promises he has no intention of keeping to manipulate the team according to his own self-interest. Ripley is keen on this so it never truly takes her by surprise.

The leadership lesson here is: don’t trust corporate. Just kidding! I work for a corporation, in the corporate HQ, in an enterprise function. I’m not like Burke, I promise! The real lesson here is to understand what motivates people. Study the political landscape of the situation and the needs of the various power brokers. In your day job, don’t expect to run across an evil saboteur like Burke, but that doesn’t mean everyone around you values you the same things you do. Like Ripley, seek to understand others’ goals and be savvy to navigate accordingly.

Go back for Newt

Amazingly, Ripley managed to escape. But unfortunately, Newt got snatched. Ripley abandoned her safety to head back into danger on a crazy-intense rescue mission to save Newt. Ripley made a promise to Newt, and unlike Burke, she fully intended to keep it or die trying.

Leaders don’t leave their teams behind. The mission isn’t the only thing that matters. While you probably won’t abandon your team member to be cocooned in an alien nest, you might be tempted to neglect your relationships with your team members because you get hyper-focused on achieving a goal. The ends don’t justify the means. Make time for people and bring everyone along.

Not bad… for a human

Ripley needed to trust Bishop, the “synthetic” or “artificial person,” to achieve her mission. This was extremely difficult for her since, in the previous film, the android tried to kill her and her crew. Toward the end of the adventure, Bishop proved trustworthy and essential for Ripley’s success. The appreciation was also reciprocated when Bishop complimented Ripley: “Not bad… for a human.”

As we struggle as leaders to achieve our audacious goals, we need to enlist the right technologies to help us succeed. Some technology choices will fail us, and others will make all of the difference in the world. We need to be savvy enough to discern the difference, then make the leap of faith that our technology choice will do what we need it to do. In the end, it’s both the technology and the humanity working together that achieves the mission.

Those are my leadership lessons from Ellen Ripley. She’s one heck of a model leader. I’d also like to credit Aliens screenwriter and director, James Cameron, for his vision for creating this strong female lead. Nowadays, this may seem commonplace, but in 1986 there weren’t many female leads in science fiction blockbusters. Today in 2019, there aren’t many female leaders in enterprise technology. We certainly could use more like Ellen Ripley among the ranks.

This article was adapted from my original post June 9th, 2017.