Why Entrepreneurs Should Lead Like Film Directors

When we think about entrepreneurship, the usual language is financial: revenue, valuations, markets. But if we pause and take a step back, there is another way to look at business venturing — not through the cold vocabulary of accounting, but through the living vocabulary of drama.

Aristotle, the philosopher who first laid down the principles of storytelling, might offer entrepreneurs a lens to see their work differently. He taught that drama rests on two pillars: desire and conflict. A character’s desire drives the story forward; conflict gives it life. Without desire, there is no reason to act. Without conflict, there is no reason to watch.

What happens if we borrow this principle and apply it to entrepreneurship? A venture, like a film, becomes a story of desire struggling against conflict. The entrepreneur steps into the role not just of a business executive, but of a director shaping a drama. This shift in lens could change how leaders build businesses, lead teams and connect with their audiences.

Related: What Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Filmmakers and Their Craft

Desire: More than profit

In drama, the protagonist always wants something deeply human. It is rarely money for money’s sake. It is love, respect, freedom, belonging, redemption. That is why audiences care. They see themselves reflected in those desires.

A venture driven only by the desire for profit feels flat, like a script with no emotional core. Audiences — in this case, customers, partners and society at large — don’t engage with such a story. What they respond to is a founder’s deeper desire: solving a real-world problem, creating something meaningful, improving lives or challenging the status quo.

A filmmaker cannot begin without an engaging subject that matters to an audience. Likewise, an entrepreneur cannot build a lasting venture without a desire rooted in solving problems that resonate beyond the balance sheet.

Conflict: The engine of the story

Conflict is what gives shape to the journey. It forces the character to grow, adapt and reveal who they really are.

Every venture encounters conflicts — lack of funding, tough competitors, shifting regulations, internal disagreements, technological hurdles, even the founder’s own doubts. These obstacles are not distractions from the story. The way entrepreneurs face them determines the trajectory of the drama.

In fact, conflict is what makes the narrative engaging for the “audience.” Customers, employees and stakeholders watch to see how the venture navigates challenges. They don’t expect perfection; they expect resilience, creativity and authenticity.

The entrepreneur as director

If business is drama, then the entrepreneur is not just the protagonist but also the director. In film, the director holds the vision. They don’t act in every scene, but they guide the actors, shape the interpretation and make sure the story resonates with the audience.

Like actors, each member brings unique talent, personality and creativity. The director doesn’t micromanage every line delivery; they create space for actors to bring themselves into the role. Likewise, effective founders create conditions for their teams to perform at their best, improvising when needed, surprising even the director with their creativity.

The audience doesn’t care about how hard the production was. For entrepreneurs, the same is true: Customers don’t care about internal struggles, but they do care about whether the product or service delivers meaning and value.

Related: Director of Oscar-Winning Film Has #4 Lessons For Aspiring Entrepreneurs

Producing: The other half of leadership

Alongside directing sits producing — the unglamorous but essential discipline of managing resources, schedules and constraints. In cinema, producers ensure that a film actually gets made, balancing vision with practicality. In entrepreneurship, this role is equally vital. Founders are both dreamers and producers, tasked with turning desire into reality under real-world limitations.

It is as if one person must both inspire like a director and negotiate like a producer. But perhaps this is why entrepreneurs, like filmmakers, create such compelling dramas. The act itself is inherently dramatic: vision wrestling with reality, art colliding with budget, desire meeting conflict at every step.

Toward a business drama framework

If we take this analogy seriously, we might imagine a framework for entrepreneurs inspired by the principles of drama:

1. Identify the desire: What problem are you truly solving? What change in the world do you long to see? This must be more than profit; it must be a subject that engages your “audience.”

2. Map the conflicts: What obstacles stand in your way? Internal? External? Market-driven? These conflicts are not side notes; they are the story itself.

3. Cast the team: Who brings talent, creativity and energy to bring the story alive? How do you allow them to perform authentically?

4. Direct with vision: Provide clarity of theme and direction, but allow improvisation. The best performances often emerge when actors feel ownership of their roles.

5. Produce with discipline: Balance the creative vision with resources and constraints. A story unfinished is no story at all.

6. Engage the audience: Every venture must ultimately resonate with its audience. Test constantly whether your story is landing, and adjust accordingly.

Training entrepreneurs like directors

This raises an intriguing possibility: What if entrepreneurs trained not only in business schools but also in producing and directing courses? Such training would sharpen their ability to tell compelling stories, lead with empathy and engage audiences. Drama schools emphasize improvisation, storytelling and directing labs — all tools that entrepreneurs could use to become more adaptive, inspiring and emotionally intelligent leaders.

Just as directors learn to orchestrate performances without stifling creativity, entrepreneurs could learn to lead ventures that feel less like rigid organizations and more like living stories.

Related: The Director Behind the Ocean Eleven’s Franchise Shares How His Storytelling Skills Helped Build His Liquor Startup

The business drama

Entrepreneurship is the story of a desire struggling against conflict, shaped by a director’s vision, produced under constraints and brought alive by a team of performers. Its success depends not just on execution but on whether the audience — the market — finds the story worth engaging with.

If entrepreneurs begin to see themselves not only as executives but as directors and producers, they might build ventures that are more human, more creative and more resonant. Aristotle taught that drama reveals truth through desire and conflict. Perhaps business, at its best, does the same.

When we think about entrepreneurship, the usual language is financial: revenue, valuations, markets. But if we pause and take a step back, there is another way to look at business venturing — not through the cold vocabulary of accounting, but through the living vocabulary of drama.

Aristotle, the philosopher who first laid down the principles of storytelling, might offer entrepreneurs a lens to see their work differently. He taught that drama rests on two pillars: desire and conflict. A character’s desire drives the story forward; conflict gives it life. Without desire, there is no reason to act. Without conflict, there is no reason to watch.

What happens if we borrow this principle and apply it to entrepreneurship? A venture, like a film, becomes a story of desire struggling against conflict. The entrepreneur steps into the role not just of a business executive, but of a director shaping a drama. This shift in lens could change how leaders build businesses, lead teams and connect with their audiences.