Following your heart

The Water Diviner is a excellent film: a gripping narrative, a highly charged subject, convincing acting, great costumes, good cinematography, wonderful sets and locations, and crisp direction. Yes, it's a bit schmultzy and maybe a little predictable: but it is all the more satisfying because of that.

My only quibble is not really knowing quite how much was made up and how much of the story is based on real events. Perhaps that does not matter in the end, but I just would like to have been told... It would have helped me to understand how true was the depiction of Turkish politics in that pre Attaturk period. But a good film nonetheless - well worth a watch.

This is a passionate film: the passions post the first world war are very high - not least in Turkey where the war is continuing between the Turks and Greeks. In the middle of this is the story of a man desperate to bring his three sons home from Gallipoli. Driven by grief, a promise and a somewhat mystical confidence that he will locate them in the ruins of the battlefield, is a man who won't give up.

Leadership is about passion: passion to keep on keeping on when many round you are saying give up. And leadership that inspires passion in others too - sometimes over quite banal things. Good leaders know this. Great leaders can divine their sources of passion even when they mostly feel deflated or lost.

How good are you at divining your own sources of passion?

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This is the eighty third of my 2014/2015 series of blogs about leadership ideas to be found in the movies of our time. You can read here as why I began doing this (with an update at the end of 2014). Please subscribe to this blog if you want to read more. Thanks. Click the label 'film' to see all the others.