Thoughts of revenge can channel complex emotions—anger, grief, humiliation, and power—into a controlled narrative with closure.
The idea of exacting revenge restores feelings of agency and control and amplifies feelings of empowerment. Reclaiming power through decisive action is invigorating to watch and think about for many people.
No wonder revenge movies are one of the more popular film genres.
People are drawn to fictional stories of revenge because they evoke primal feelings of justice, catharsis, and power over enemies and threats. Watching or reading stories where victims are transformed into avengers helps the audience examine their own relationship between power and empathy.
Such stories create a narrative symmetry where the balance of power is restored, and the moral order is reestablished.
Unlike real life, the conflict is resolved permanently, and the sense of order that the real world often denies is reaffirmed. Unfortunately, repeated exposure to revenge narratives has been shown to heighten moral polarization and desensitize empathy.
For leaders, the effect is much worse.
Leaders who expose themselves to a steady diet of revenge movies and books are more likely to normalize grievance, see conflicts through an “us versus them” lens, and become subtly more aggressive and punitive in their behavior over time.
The risk is not that fictional stories reinforce bad instincts, but that repeated exposure trains a leader’s internal script for how power, justice, and respect are to be handled.
Good leaders don’t seek revenge. They recognize that retaliatory behavior is a personal, emotional, and backward-looking reaction. They know that what in the moment feels like righteous “payback” commonly exacerbates conflict and results in incivility and countermeasures.
Now for the kicker.
When team members witness a leader engage in retaliatory behavior or reprisal, they view them as less trustworthy, more unfair, and highly unethical, no matter how justified the action may appear at the moment.
In contrast, leaders who favor reconciliation, evenness, and fairness over retaliation promote higher trust, openness, and transparency from their team.
Good leaders never cross the line between holding people accountable and exacting revenge.
Accountability is corrective and forward-looking, while revenge is punitive and past-focused. Accountability is about establishing standards and elevating long-term performance, while revenge is about settling a score and inflicting pain.
The best leaders never “teach people a lesson.” For leaders, competence, credibility, followership, effectiveness, and success create any symbolic revenge and catharsis they may need.
John Wick would never think of that.
