Can motion pictures be used to train students in leadership and develop their leadership skills? What is the relationship between cinema and leadership?
I was motivated to write in this field by an experiment conducted by Oklahoma State University about 20 years ago in which films were successfully used as part of a program to train students in leadership skills and help them discover themselves, understand themselves, and their leadership qualities, by participating in the analysis and discussion of the leadership qualities of the heroes of these films.
In fact, the use of cinema in driving education is consistent with the nature of the times and the nature of their youth, which consumes more visual content - especially digitally published - than written content, so the use of such a medium suits their general mood and the nature of their experiences.
For decades, cinema in the Arab region, as well as in the world, has played a big role in shaping inspiration and opinion trends, but the problem we face here if we decide to use this medium to help create future leaders is that the content is already available.
Anyone who follows the film industry in the Arab region, and indeed in the Islamic world, is aware of the magnitude of the cultural rupture that its makers – mostly – live with our societies, their history and their great leaders. On a cultural level, these films bear the seeds of a break with the traditions and values entrenched in society and those derived from Islam, in stark subordination to the Hollywood agenda.
Thus, if a leadership trainer decides to turn to our film productions to provide models that are suitable for study, he will face difficulty to the point of impossibility, as the models offered by films produced in the region focus mostly on negative models in society, ignoring or biasing against a history full of great leaders who have found no one to tell their stories.
Thus, the need to form a generation that carries the spirit of leadership pushes us to search for a new film project, which is not commercial in nature, but rather a cultural message, focusing on excavating the success stories or struggles of the leaders who were born in this land, and most of them in all fields, so that their experiences constitute an inexhaustible source of fun, inspiration, enrichment of experiences, linking the present with the past, and opening the doors to serious discussions that inspire new leaders.
The problem we face if we decide to use movies to help create future leaders is that the right content is already available.
It starts with education, as an educational program dealing with cinema and leadership in the faculties of arts and media should be designed to qualify a new generation of authors and critics within the framework of an educational strategy adopted by our countries aimed at building human capital and qualifying young people for leadership, as the cornerstone of building the future.
In this context, universities should also be interested in directing researchers to provide scientific foundations for new cinema that contribute to providing knowledge and leadership qualification, and this opens the door to building bridges between different scientific disciplines such as cinema, communication, leadership and politics, all of which in turn will open new areas of work in society.
It is also necessary to establish film production companies that adopt this important project, a role that may be entrusted to young people themselves within the framework of a strategic vision to build the power of the state, as it is not possible to rely on a Westernized elite that does not care about the problems, hopes and struggles of peoples to produce this type of work.
Films about biographies of leaders can play an important role in the struggle of peoples for freedom and independence, as new methods can be devised that free cinema from dependence on the American model.
There are thousands of leaders in the Islamic civilization whose experiences are rich, and their biographies depict diverse and distinct aspects of leadership, and contribute to teaching young people to lead peoples to achieve comprehensive independence and build democratic systems. Can we find an Arab country that adopts this project?!
Until these visions and strategic plans are in place to present historical leadership models, leadership coaches should motivate their students to produce new digital films that depict the lives of our historic leaders.