The Workplace Horror of a Leadership Vacuum

The thing about the Alien franchise is that it keeps reminding us of the same workplace lesson: you are never as far away from a facehugger as you think you are. You can be minding your own business, fixing a leaky pipe, and suddenly you’ve got HR’s nightmare octopus trying to forcibly promote you into a parent. Alien: Romulus doubles down on this idea. Instead of seasoned veterans like Ripley or Marines who at least pretend to know what they’re doing, we get young, mostly unprepared characters who find themselves in a leadership vacuum.

And that’s where the leadership lessons from Alien Romulus live. Because most of us, at some point, get shoved into the “Congratulations, you’re in charge now” moment without training, guidance, or even a clean job description. It doesn’t feel like a promotion; it feels like something clawing its way out of your ribcage.

Situational Leadership When the Flamethrower’s Backwards

Imagine you’re suddenly asked to run a restaurant, but nobody gave you keys, half the staff doesn’t speak the same language, the fryer’s on fire, and the health inspector is already seated in the corner, writing down notes like “severe violation: cook being eaten alive by kitchen monster.” That’s Alien: Romulus in leadership form—crisis with no map, no mentor, and no time to Google “how to manage people.”

Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Leadership theory becomes uncomfortably relevant here. The model argues that leaders need to flex their style depending on the competence and commitment of their followers (Northouse, 2021). If someone has no skill but lots of enthusiasm, you direct. If they have skill but no confidence, you support. Easy to say in a classroom. Harder when the follower in question is holding a flamethrower backwards and screaming about acid blood. Romulus shows how clumsy this gets when young people are thrust into command roles—they don’t have the flexibility because they don’t even know the base settings yet.

Authentic Leadership: Why You Can’t Fake Command

Then there’s authentic leadership, as described by Bill George (2003). Authentic leaders win trust by being consistent, transparent, and rooted in values. The problem is, if you’re nineteen years old and have never even managed a car payment, you don’t have a leadership philosophy yet. Some of the Romulus crew try to fake it—raising their voice, giving orders, posturing like someone who knows how to run a horror movie. And the movie punishes them for it, because authenticity can’t be faked. You can trick your friends into thinking you’re cool, but you can’t trick a xenomorph into believing you’re in charge.

Negative Leadership and the Buffet of Bad Choices

And if we’re talking about punishment, Barbara Kellerman’s work on negative leadership fits right in (Kellerman, 2004). She breaks bad leaders into categories: incompetent, rigid, callous, corrupt, insular, and evil. Alien Romulus gives us a buffet of those. You see incompetence in people who freeze under pressure, rigidity in those who can’t adapt when the plan falls apart, and callousness when survival turns into betrayal. And the result is predictable: higher casualty rate than a team-building ropes course supervised by velociraptors.

What Alien: Romulus Reminds Us About Real-World Promotion Nightmares

Here’s the uncomfortable real-world echo: Alien Romulus feels familiar because many of us have lived some version of it. Maybe not the acid-blood monsters, but the promotion you weren’t ready for, the absent boss who left you holding the bag, the chaotic project where everyone’s improvising until it collapses. The film makes it literal, but the truth is that leadership vacuums don’t stay empty. Someone always steps up. Sometimes they grow into the role. Sometimes they get eaten.

Surviving your first leadership role won’t burn holes through the floor plating, but the scars last just the same. The question isn’t whether you’ll be terrified or unprepared—that part is guaranteed. The real question is whether you’ll figure out how to flex, to be authentic, and to avoid turning into the kind of rigid disaster that costs lives. In space, no one can hear you scream. But in the office, everyone can hear you panic. And it smells just as bad.

References

Northouse, P. G. (2021). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Sage.

Hersey, P., & Blanchard, K. H. (1969). Life cycle theory of leadership. Training and Development Journal.

George, B. (2003). Authentic Leadership. Jossey-Bass.

Kellerman, B. (2004). Bad Leadership: What It Is, How It Happens, Why It Matters. Harvard Business School Press.