What Matilda Taught Me About Leading Without Power
I watched Matilda as a kid and thought it was about magic.
I rewatched it as an adult and realized it was about leadership the whole time.
Miss Honey has nothing. No authority, no resources, no institutional support. She works under a principal who humiliates children for sport and underpays teachers without blinking. She lives in a tiny cottage and owns almost nothing. By every conventional measure, she has no power at all.
And yet she is the most effective leader in the room.
She walked into her classroom every single day with full presence and genuine belief in the people in front of her. She saw Matilda when nobody else did while also embracing every single kid's personality and the value they brought into the classroom. She protected her students when the system gave her no tools to do so (unfortunately the current reality of many teachers across the world). She led from exactly where she was, with exactly what she had.
That's not a fairy tale. That's one of the hardest things to do in real life.
I also remember noticing Matilda's dad as a kid without having language for what bothered me about him. He was technically the leader of that family. Present in the house, present at the dinner table. But completely absent in the way that actually counts. Too busy, too distracted, too focused on the next deal to see the person sitting right in front of him. Maybe you've been part of teams like that. Or as a leader, you've had the challenge to stay present with your team while navigating your own pressures from above.
And then there's the cake scene. Bruce, forced to finish an enormous chocolate cake in front of the entire school while everyone watches. What stays with me is the moment the other students start cheering for him. Solidarity forming quietly, under pressure, in a room designed to humiliate. That happens in teams too. The best thing a leader can do in that moment is notice it and protect it.
Trunchbull and Honey exist in the same building, under the same constraints, with the same resources. One uses fear. One uses empathy. The film doesn't pretend the one who uses empathy has it easier. Miss Honey's life is genuinely hard. But she never lets the difficulty of her circumstances become a reason to make someone else's life harder.
That's the leadership lesson I didn't have words for at eight years old.
You don't need a title or a budget or a seat at the table to lead well. You need presence. You need to actually see the people in front of you. And you need to decide, every day, what kind of room you're going to create with whatever you have.