Citizen Kane

In the movie Citizen Kane, starring Orson Welles as Charles Foster Kane, we watch Kane throughout his life starting as a young boy who is taken from his home by the wealthy Walter Parks Thatcher to his death decades later in a cold and empty house, where he utters his final word, "rosebud."

As Kane becomes a young man, with the help of Parks, we see the contrast between the two men, and it looks like Kane is going to be a standup guy and a successful leader. He wants to run a newspaper and actually be involved in its production, unlike the previous owner. 

Kane decides to live in the newsroom, and runs his newspaper alongside his friends Jedediah Leland and Mr. Bernstein. 

Together, the three men operate as leaders over the office where everyone adores them. 

I believe that if Kane had been satisfied with his newspaper and hadn't become greedy like Parks, he could have been an ideal leader in his position and his life would have gone very different. 

He had decided to run for governor, and that's where his blunders in leadership began. He believed that just because he could successfully run a newspaper that he could run over a whole population of people. 

And he almost did, too, had it not been for his affair with 'singer' Susan. He was exposed to the public and lost all chances of becoming governor. The lies and betrayal that he did in his personal life caught up to his political life.

As a political leader, you don't have a real 'personal' life anymore. All your moves are scrutinized and every step you take has to be calculated. Kane thought he could have his cake and eat it too, but as a leader, that is something that you just can't do. 

Kane tried to be a leader in every part of his life, but his leadership turned into overbearing dictatorship. He couldn't work for or with anyone else and thought he knew best. He all but forced his new wife, Susan, to become an opera singer to legitimize her singing career, but her attempted suicide is what it takes for him to lay off.

His need for greed and superiority over everyone else is pushing the people who love him away from him. Kane believes that he is still the great leader that he was when he began the newspaper, but his ego won't let him see that he is a completely new person now.

He's become Walter Thatcher Parks, the man who raised him and the man Kane wanted nothing to be like. 

Over time, Kane locked himself and Susan in his mansion, Xanadu. Susan wanted to do things, like go to parties and see friends, but Kane's authority over Susan prevented her from free will. We see Susan begin doing puzzles to pass the time.

Kane went wrong in a number of different ways, but at each crossroad he stood at, he went deeper and deeper down a road leading to isolation and desolation rather than the road that led to leadership and happiness. His inability to be satisfied with what he had led him to want to achieve more than he already did.

He wound up having a bigger house than he could handle, more artwork than he needed and more sculptures than could be appreciated. Everything in his house was idle when Susan left him, and he ended up being only a leader of expensive art and unfinished puzzles.