Module Components

• Overview
• Assignments

Topics

• Introduction to Winston Churchill
• Churchill’s Pivotal Moments
• Churchill’s Finest Moment
• Leadership Lessons from the “Darkest Hour”

NURS 696 - Leadership Analysis: A Cinematic Approach

Module 2: Darkest Hour

Introduction to Winston Churchill

“Darkest Hour” is a basic history lesson in which the righteous triumph over the misguided, and it is also a lesson in leadership. The result will be satisfying for anyone who laments the inadequacies of those currently charting the path of humanity and longs for strong, enlightened leaders who pursue only the well-being of their people, and of the world as a whole.

Who better to represent such leadership than Winston Churchill -- and even more than that, a Churchill facing a leadership crisis, which he fought through with courage and resolve when he refused to abandon his longtime national and global vision? That vision had already motivated Churchill in the 1930s, when to the dismay of fellow members of the Conservative Party, he railed against the dangers of Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in Germany. In May 1940, after the resignation of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who believes he cannot lead Britain through a war (and has also been diagnosed with cancer), King George VI names Churchill as Chamberlain’s successor. The king chooses Churchill even though he finds him off-putting, and – as he admits at one point in the movie – fears his capricious, aggressive behavior.

To learn more about Winston Churchill:

Who is Winston Churchill?

Churchill and Leadership During WWII

Nine Things about Winston Churchill…

Clementine Churchill

Six Things about Clementine Churchill…