Lessons are best learned when we don’t expect them. When someone proselytizes us or pontificates, our defenses go up. Therefore, the best time to influence someone is when their guard is down. That’s why good ads can have a profound impact — we expect them to be mindless at best, annoying at worst, and most of them are either or both. But some are transformational and enduring.
Television commercials convey some of the most powerful lessons in leadership and can be worth showing to aspiring leaders or serve as templates for your own leadership messages. In last month’s column I listed numbers 10 through six of those TV ads that best exemplify leadership principles in my opinion. Here, I share numbers five through one in descending order.