Redefining Leadership and Masculinity: Insights from My Hero Academia

Discovering the Truth About Leadership and Masculinity Through the Lens of My Hero Academia"

Image Source: Crunchyroll

This essay is the first in a series titled, “Lessons learned in Leadership.” In this series, I will discuss lessons I have learned in my leadership journey. I don’t have all of the answers, and to be honest, I don’t most of the answers, so if you would like to contribute to this series with some of your own lessons, feel free to message me.

Credit where credit is due, I came up with this concept after being inspired by the great writing happening at the substack, “TV’s Moral Philosophy” check them out below!

I love Anime, however, that wasn’t always the cause. For most of my life, the most you could get me to watch was Dragon Ball Z, and a few episodes of Sailor Moon. But like most people, when the shutdown happened in 2020, I was starved for content and decided to try something new. I haven’t looked back since. 

Three years later, and I like to believe I have a healthy rotation of shows, but one that stands out above the others is the shonen, called, My Hero Academia. My Hero is a story about a world where more than 80% of the world’s population has a quirk (power) and some of them use it to fight crimes. So many people in fact, that they now have an entire hero industry. A young boy by the name of Izuku Midoriya wants to one day become a hero like his idol All Might, unfortunately, he was born quirkless. 

After a chance encounter with All Might, Midoriya gains powers, and enrolls in the top hero school in the country. The anime chronicles those adventures. 

You’re probably wondering what an anime about fighting crime has to do with leadership, but stick with me. Midoriya, while passionate and clearly on the trajectory of becoming a great hero, goes against every idea I had about heroes. 

First of all, despite inheriting the strongest power in the world, he is incredibly shy, and spends a lot of time in his head. Additionally, since he grew up without a quirk, he has strong analytical skills, and learned to utilize that to inform all of his decisions. In the beginning of the show, his new powers are too intense for him to use without injuring himself, so he is forced to be creative. In one of the earlier arcs, he teams up with two classmates, and uses their collective skills to create an opening for his power. He still gets injured, but because he was willing to work with others, they were able to escape from villains. That’s one of the strangest things about Midoriya, while his classroom rivals excel with overwhelming force, he must asks for help and rely on his friends to accomplish his goals. There are moments where Midoriya feels embarrassed that he needs their support, but his dedication to accomplishing his goals keeps him from faltering. 

I like Midoriya because his journey to becoming “the world's greatest hero” and the lessons he learns along the way reminds me about my leadership journey. Similar to him, I grew up believing that strong leaders, and leadership looked and felt a certain way. I thought I had to have all of the answers, be a hundred percent self assured, smarter than everyone else in the room, speak more than I listened, and impose my will on others. For a long time, I thought I had to do the same things if I wanted to be seen as a “real man.” But the older I get, the more I value vulnerability, kindness, honesty, and humility.

Leadership, like masculinity, cannot be simply cosplayed, and the societal ideas about both are as fictional as the characters in the Anime. Unfortunately, while this anime is clearly fictional, the societal story we tell ourselves about manhood, power, and leadership often seems divorced from reality.

During the spring of 2021, I received a huge promotion, and an opportunity to take on an expanded leadership role at my organization. I stepped into the position with a lot of confidence, self imposed pressure, assumptions about my team, and ideas for change that were driven by my need to be “successful” whatever that meant. I faced major internal pushback, made some poor strategic choices, and failed miserably. Since then, I have been on a journey to figure out why things went so wrong, in the hopes that I can learn and be better. 

There are many lessons to share, but the biggest one is simple: everything we have learned about leadership, and yes, manhood, is a lie. To be great at either one of them, it is imperative for you to do the work. That means working to figure out your triggers, learning to love yourself, practicing how to stay curious, and having the courage to be different. If you can do that, you have a chance to succeed where many have failed.