8月初，由汤姆•克鲁斯主演的动作电影《碟中谍》系列的第五部《神秘国度》在美国豪取5600万美元票房。彼时，这部电影的海外票房也达到了6500万美元。

这是汤姆•克鲁斯的胜利。上世纪80年代，凭借电影《壮志凌云》的热映，克鲁斯的事业突飞猛进，但2005年他在《奥普拉脱口秀》上“跳沙发”的失态表现，在YouTube上迅速传播，他的事业随即跌入低谷。此后，他在媒体面前又做出了其他不当举动。比如，在接受《今日秀》采访时，身为山达基教徒的克鲁斯，竟然指责女演员波姬•小丝服用抗抑郁药，治疗产后抑郁症。

自此之后，克鲁斯一直星途不顺。但在过去十年，他不仅承受住了媒体无情的批判，并成功东山再起，证明自己依旧有着超高的票房号召力。大多数政治人物和CEO们都应该对克鲁斯的经历深有同感，因为他们也清楚一举一动均被聚光灯放大的感受。克鲁斯在好莱坞重振雄风的历程，可以让领导者获得四点教益：

    身处困境时，不要让自己越陷越深

克鲁斯的“跳沙发事件”其实并不严重，本应很快从公众视线当中消失。但他却又莫名其妙，甚至有些不负责任地抨击服用抗抑郁药，两件事结合起来，便勾勒出一副糟糕的形象，他成了一位失控的名人。

起初，克鲁斯似乎还想冒双重风险为自己对山达基教的信仰辩护，但最后他明智地选择停止谈论这个话题。随着负面舆论增多，他可能意识到，自己的个人行为已经令自身职业陷入困境，因此他首先选择停止为自己“挖坑”。

克鲁斯已经很少谈论他的山达基教信仰。这并不意味着他已经完全摆脱了负担，但至少他不再为媒体提供更多自我破坏的素材。

    将公关任务留给专业人士去做

最优秀的领导者会在身边聚集最出色的专业人士，随时征求和听取他们的建议，尤其是一些关键职能，如公关等。长期以来，克鲁斯背后一直有一个聪明的公关团队在替他打理事业。经纪公司PMK的帕特•金丝莉是一位优秀的公关专家，负责精心维护克鲁斯的公众形象。两人的合作也非常成功。

但据《名利场》杂志报道，在公关危机开始之前，克鲁斯却炒掉了金丝莉，由同为山达基教徒的姐姐担任自己的经纪人，这令好莱坞大跌眼镜。这是一个糟糕的决定，而且事实也证明了这一点，因为金丝莉这样的老牌经纪人肯定能预防公关危机的出现。报道称，她曾告诫克鲁斯在山达基教这件事上“保持低调”，这是明智的建议，可惜未被克鲁斯采纳。

不过，克鲁斯后来用专业的公关人士取代了自己的姐姐，最初聘用的是保罗•布洛赫，现在的经纪人是阿曼达•伦德博格。相比克鲁斯的姐姐在《奥普拉脱口秀》和《今日秀》这两个灾难性事件中的表现，伦德博格在维护克鲁斯形象方面所做的工作更有成效。很显然，他已经明白，名声绝对不能成为赌注，对于一位影星来说更是如此。

    学会自嘲

危机爆发之后，克鲁斯在电影上的表现也时好时坏。有的电影表现不错，比如《世界大战》，但有些必定会成功的电影却未能达到预期（尽管它们依旧有利可图），比如《碟中谍3》。更糟糕的是，合作已久的电影制片厂派拉蒙电影公司也抛弃了他。事实上，准确地说，克鲁斯算不上失败，但他不再拥有之前的那种票房号召力，也是不争的事实。对于观众们来说，他似乎已经成为了一个笑话。

于是，他决定自嘲，而不是在他人的嘲笑中顾影自怜。

2008年，克鲁斯在喜剧电影《热带惊雷》中扮演了一个重要的小角色——低俗粗鲁的制片公司高管雷斯•格罗斯曼。他自嘲般的滑稽表演获得了观众和批评家们的好评。这个角色虽然并未立刻解决克鲁斯所面临的公关问题，但在改善公众形象方面肯定发挥了一定的作用。

克鲁斯在电影结尾时滑稽的舞蹈，不由令人想起电影《乖仔也疯狂》中的类似场景。这种自嘲的态度，帮助克鲁斯找回了他最重要的资本——观众对他的喜爱。

    保持专注

众所周知，克鲁斯对待工作一丝不苟，非常专注，或许正是因为如此，他跳沙发的失态表现和山达基教的不当言论，才会令公众如此困惑和震惊。但即便在公关危机期间，他也没有停止工作，之后他推出了一系列作品，包括在剧情片《狮入羊口》中的转型尝试，以及在历史动作片《刺杀希特勒》中的出色表演，更不用说质量上乘、票房大卖的《碟中谍》系列电影了。

克鲁斯很清楚观众想要什么，因此他一直在努力满足观众的需求。尽管尝试过喜剧和剧情片，但他始终记得自己是一名动作明星，并始终坚持这一点。在《碟中谍5：神秘国度》的前五分钟，克鲁斯表演了令人瞠目的特技，包括飞机起飞时，悬挂在飞机一侧的镜头。这场特技也成为电影宣传的重头戏，展现和肯定了克鲁斯的专长。

这种坚持使得克鲁斯的职业生涯在过去十年一直在持续，也为如何应对困境树立了一个良好的榜样。尽管媒体和公众似乎更愿意嘲笑他，而不是为他的努力喝彩，但克鲁斯表现出了强大的领导者素质——面对困境，在正确的轨道上坚持前行，并对自己的票房潜力始终充满信心。（财富中文网）

译者：刘进龙/汪皓

审校：任文科

Over the weekend, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, the fifth installment in the lucrative action thriller franchise starring Tom Cruise, opened to an impressive $56 million at the U.S. box office. In addition, the movie has made $65 million overseas so far.

It’s a coup for Cruise, who saw his career skyrocket after Top Gun in the 1980s but then watched it sink like a stone in 2005 after a silly couch-jumping stunt on The Oprah Winfrey Show, which went viral on YouTube. This was followed by other media fiascos, including his interview on the Today Show in which the Scientologist attacked actress Brooke Shields over her use of antidepressants for postpartum depression.

It’s been a tough ride for Cruise since then, but not only has he survived the media’s unforgiving spotlight over the past 10 years, he seems to have made a comeback as a highly bankable movie star. Most politicians and CEOs can relate to Cruise, as they know what it’s like to have almost every move dissected under the public spotlight. And so, the following are 4 leadership lessons any leader can draw from Cruise’s Hollywood comeback.

    When you’re in a hole, stop digging

Cruise’s couch-jumping episode wasn’t really a serious one and should have vanished from the public consciousness after a short time. But when combined with the movie star’s bizarre, and what some call irresponsible rant about the use of anti-depressants, it painted an image of a celebrity coming apart at the seams.

Initially, Cruise seemed to double down on his beliefs in Scientology but eventually did the smart thing and stopped talking about it. As the negative press about him mounted, he probably realized that his personal behavior had placed him in a career hole and the first thing he had to do was stop digging.

Cruise seems to have become less vocal about his involvement with Scientology. That doesn’t mean he’s completely free of baggage but at least he’s stopped giving the media fodder for his own destruction.

    Leave publicity to the right professionals

The best leaders surround themselves with the best professionals they can find and listen to their advice, especially when it comes to critical functions like publicity. For the longest time, Cruise had a clever public relations team stage-managing his career. Pat Kingsley of PMK was a powerhouse publicist who carefully controlled Cruise’s public image. It was a successful partnership.

But just before his publicity crisis began, Cruise surprised Hollywood by firing her and replacing her with his sister, also a Scientologist, according to Vanity Fair. It was a terrible move and very telling because a veteran like Kingsley could quite possibly have prevented the fiasco. She reportedly told Cruise to “cool it” with Scientology, which was smart advice – had he taken it.

Since then, however, Cruise replaced his sister with a professional publicist, first Paul Bloch and now Amanda Lundberg, who seems to be doing a much better job of maintaining his image than his sister did during the disastrous Oprah and Today show period. He clearly realized that publicity, particularly for a movie star, is not something to be gambled with.

    Get in on the joke

Following his seeming meltdown, Cruise’s movies performed unevenly. Some, like War of the Worlds, did well while other surefire bets like Mission Impossible 3 failed to live up to expectations (even though they were still profitable). To add to his troubles, his longtime studio partner, Paramount Pictures, jettisoned him. Cruise wasn’t exactly a failure but neither did he command the box office clout he once possessed. For the movie-going audience, he seemed to have become a joke.

So he decided to get in on the joke instead of being victimized by it.

In 2008, Cruise played a small but significant role in the comedy film Tropic Thunder, playing a sleazy and profane studio executive named Les Grossman. His hilarious performance, which indirectly seemed to be poking fun at himself, was well-received by audiences and critics alike. Even though the role didn’t solve Cruise’s PR problems overnight, it could be argued that it did a fair amount to soften his image.

By being willing to laugh at himself, including appearing in an absurd dance sequence at the end of the film reminiscent of a similar scene in Risky Business, Cruise was able to restore his greatest asset – his likability.

    Stay focused

Cruise has always been known for his unerring focus, which is perhaps why the public was so distracted and jarred by his couch-jumping and Scientology antics. Yet even during that period, Cruise never stopped working, and since then has produced a solid body of work, including a dramatic turn in Lions for Lambs and a compelling performance in the historical action thriller Valkyrie, not to mention several Mission Impossible movies of reasonably even quality and success.

Cruise knows what his audience wants and works hard to provide it consistently. Despite his forays into comedy and drama, he is above all an action star and has remained true to that. In the first five minutes of Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, for example, Cruise performed an eye-popping stunt by dangling off the side of an airplane as it takes off. That stunt, which has been the centerpiece of the movie’s marketing campaign, both defines and confirms Cruise’s specialty.

That consistency has kept his career afloat over the past decade and is a good lesson in how to weather storms. Even though the press and the public have seemed to take more pleasure in ridiculing him than applauding his work, Cruise has exhibited strong leadership qualities by staying on track and remaining confident of his own box office potential.

S. Kumar is a tech and business commentator. He has worked in technology, media, and telecom investment banking.