The Life and Leadership of Brian

Brian: No, no. Please, please please listen. I've got one or two things to say.
The Crowd: Tell us! Tell us both of them!
Brian: Look, you've got it all wrong. You don't need to follow me. You don't need to follow anybody! You've got to think for yourselves! You're all individuals!
The Crowd: Yes! We're all individuals!
Brian: You're all different!
The Crowd: Yes! We're all different!
Man in crowd: I'm not...
Man in crowd: Shhh!
Brian: You've all got to work it out for yourselves.
The Crowd: Yes! We've got to work it out for ourselves!
Brian: Exactly!
The Crowd: Tell us more!

In this famous scene from Monty Python’s The Life of Brian, the titular character Brian is mistaken for the messiah and followed home by a crowd. Brian with the crowd to think for themselves, not seeing the self-contradicting nature of his demand.

Throughout The Life of Brian, Brian serves as an unwilling but benign spiritual leader. His “teachings”, while far from profound, generally are sensible and harmless. However, Brian’s leadership is undermined by the nature of his followers. According to the document “The Allure of Toxic Leaders”, Brian’s followers classify as “Benign type A”. These are followers seeking a vision, any vision. Because they want to be part of some grand scheme, they push the leader into making radical decisions and changes, even when no such changes are called for. Because they believe that Brian is the Messiah, they refuse to question his ideas and continually push him towards “greatness”.

There’s also a lovely moment of groupthink present in the scene: When one man speaks up to say that he’s not different, the man in front of him turns and shushes him. A subtle nod towards bad followership, perhaps?