There are two kinds of leaders in the world:
those who float around in a bubble and those who get shoved out a tower window, discover gravity is optional, and decide to rewrite the laws of physics on the way down.
If you’ve seen the new Wicked movie, you know exactly which is which.
Glinda is the sparkle-tinged embodiment of good intentions polished into marketing gold.
Elphaba is the misunderstood genius who walks into a room and immediately identifies every structural flaw in the system, the architecture, and possibly the moral universe.
And let’s be honest – most attorneys think they’re Elphaba.
Most attorneys are, in fact, Glinda with a law degree and a LinkedIn banner.
But the world-especially the legal world – runs better when more of us channel our inner green girl. Not the misunderstood villain, not the chaos goblin who sets a monkey free without a compliance committee, but the leader who tells the truth even when the sky turns emerald and the headlines get weird.
So let’s sift through the glitter and see what Wicked teaches us about leadership, ambition, and why the best attorneys are often painted the color of dissent.
Floating Isn’t Leading: The Glinda Problem
Glinda’s greatest skill is self-presentation.
This woman could sell a broken wand at full price and get five-star customer reviews.
She walks in with a smile calibrated to FDA specifications.
She talks in a vocabulary that jingles like a charm bracelet.
She networks like oxygen.
She is, in short, most lawyers at their first bar conference.
But Glinda’s leadership – at least early on – is built on external validation.
What do people think?
How am I perceived?
What will the Wizard say?
Are my curls symmetrical enough to hold up in court?
This is a leadership style built for performance reviews, not revolutions.
And here’s the secret nobody wants to acknowledge:
The “Glinda Problem” is universal in law.
Law school teaches it.
Firms enforce it.
Bar associations reward it.
We float when we should climb.
We sparkle when we should sharpen.
We network when we should dissent.
And all of this comes at the cost of actual leadership.
Because leadership isn’t the ability to look good in a bubble.
Leadership is the willingness to break it.
The Elphaba Paradox: Do Good, Be Feared Anyway
Elphaba does something Glinda almost never does: she tells the truth.
Not the curated truth.
Not the pleasant truth.
Not the “let’s spin this for the Wizard’s press conference” truth.
The truth-truth.
The kind that wrinkles the linen tablecloth at a board meeting.
The kind that sends half the room into frightened applause and the other half into HR complaints.
The kind that leaders desperately need but rarely want.
Elphaba’s paradox is that her integrity is misread as danger.
Her intelligence is reframed as threat.
Her compassion is spun into rebellion.
Sound familiar?
Every attorney who has ever blown the whistle, stood up to a supervisor, refused to bury an inconvenient fact, or questioned a process older than statehood knows this feeling intimately.
Being “wicked” is often just code for being unwilling to participate in shared delusions.
Elphaba isn’t evil.
She’s inconvenient.
And inconvenience is the mother of progress.
If Glinda is the face of institutional success, Elphaba is the force of necessary disruption.
Why Attorneys Default to Glinda Mode
Because Glinda wins – at least early on.
She gets the applause.
The invitations.
The “you’d make a wonderful judge one day” compliments whispered over dessert at bar events.
She is the embodiment of career-track perfection.
Attorneys are raised to crave that kind of path.
Grades, clerkships, firm rankings, accolades – prizes awarded for fitting in, not sticking out.
The entire industry runs on predictability:
Keep your suit ironed.
Keep your résumé updated.
Keep your opinions curated to mild, consensus-friendly observations suitable for CLE panels.
Elphaba would rather set the CLE panel on fire to prove a point.
Glinda mode is safe.
Elphaba mode is seismic.
And most attorneys fear earthquakes – even when the building needs to fall.
The First Wicked Leadership Lesson: Values Beat Optics
Glinda fights for her image.
Elphaba fights for her values.
One of them gets a parade.
The other gets a legend.
Which one would you rather be?
Values-driven leadership is messy.
It gets you funny looks.
It gets you tough conversations.
It gets you late-night phone calls about decisions that could cost you opportunities.
But values-driven leadership is also what protects clients, shapes communities, and builds institutions that actually matter.
The Wizard runs his administration like a PR firm.
Elphaba tries to run it like a moral entity.
Guess which one history remembers kindly?
The Second Wicked Leadership Lesson: Growth Requires Being Misunderstood
Leadership is not a popularity contest.
Leadership is the willingness to follow your convictions into the storm.
Elphaba’s defining moment isn’t “Defying Gravity.”
It’s the five seconds before—
when she realizes no one will follow.
Growth is lonely.
Integrity is isolating.
Change is uncomfortable in the way new shoes are uncomfortable – painful at first, but essential if you don’t want blisters for the next decade.
To lead is to accept that not everyone will applaud you.
Some might panic.
Some might gossip.
Some might try to brick-over the yellow road you’re walking on.
Leadership means walking anyway.
The Third Wicked Leadership Lesson: Be the Catalyst, Not the Mascot
Glinda is a mascot.
People put her on posters.
She is image, not ignition.
Elphaba is a catalyst.
She shakes the narrative like a snow globe.
This is the distinction that every attorney, executive, entrepreneur, judge, or ambitious human must face:
Are you working to maintain the system,
or rewrite it?
Are you smoothing surfaces,
or asking why the foundation is cracking?
Are you selling the story,
or exposing the plot twist?
Catalysts are disruptive by nature.
They create friction.
They generate heat.
They force transformation.
And the law – structured, cautious, fossilized in precedent – needs catalysts more than ever.
The Hidden Leadership Lesson: Empathy Is Rebellion
Let’s talk about the one superpower Elphaba has that Glinda doesn’t:
she sees suffering and refuses to rationalize it.
In law, this is the difference between an attorney who follows protocol and an attorney who protects people.
Elphaba sees those monkeys.
She sees their pain, their transformation, their loss of autonomy, and she reacts not with policy, not with PR, not with a committee review.
She reacts with human outrage.
Leadership grounded in empathy always looks rebellious inside systems that benefit from apathy.
Attorneys who lead with empathy challenge the Wizardry of the industry – the puff, the smoke, the paper walls, the shiny distractions.
Empathy exposes truth.
Truth exposes power.
Power exposes fear.
Glinda manages fear.
Elphaba confronts it.
The Final Wicked Leadership Lesson: Legacy Isn’t Built From Applause – It’s Built From Impact
Nobody remembers what Glinda wore.
Everybody remembers what Elphaba changed.
Applause dies the moment the audience stands
but impact echoes long after the curtain falls.
Leadership is not measured in how many people approve of you.
It’s measured in how many people are changed because of you.
You can be beloved.
You can be respected.
Or you can be necessary.
Only one of those changes the world.
Why Attorneys Should Choose Elphaba Over Glinda
Because clients deserve someone who fights, not someone who floats.
Because truth deserves someone who speaks, not someone who smiles.
Because justice deserves someone who acts, not someone who sparkles.
And because the world – especially the legal world – does not transform through politeness.
It transforms when someone finally says,
“This system is broken.
This path is wrong.
This narrative is false.
And I’m not floating along with you.”
Elphaba does not become great by being liked.
She becomes great by being willing.
The Wicked Verdict
If you’re an attorney trying to lead, inspire, innovate, or meaningfully impact your corner of the world, here’s your spellbook:
Stop floating.
Start climbing.
Stop rehearsing.
Start dissenting.
Stop asking who will approve.
Start asking who needs protecting.
Glinda leads from above.
Elphaba leads from within.
And every truly great leader, no matter what costume the world puts them in,
ends up a little green.
Brian Brijbag 