The play’s the thing…
As I previously reported, on Monday, I was a guest on “Your Leadership Podcast.” You can find the link to the podcast on the Media page of this website (and here too!). As you’ll hear, one of the podcast hosts, my old friend Mike Madison, asked a question about the relationship between leadership and theatrical performance.
I’ve been thinking about that question a lot this week. It’s a great question, and it goes to one of the core ironies of A Memorable Honor. Shakespeare is presented in the book as something of a leadership expert, one whose lessons are as valuable today as they were 400 years ago. Yet, of course, Shakespeare was not trying to be some sort of Elizabethan leadership coach; indeed, the concept would have utterly alien to him.
Shakespeare was first and foremost a dramatist and theater entrepreneur. His principal interest was in his plays – producing entertainment through performances onstage at the Globe or Blackfriars theaters. He was trying to create plays that would sell tickets to a large and diverse audience. By some estimates, between 18,000 and 24,000 people – nearly 10% of London’s total population in 1600 – went to the theater every week to see plays by Shakespeare and his fellow playwrights. Far from writing only for intellectuals or elites, Shakespeare was writing for a large audience that came from all strata of society.
Yet, through this medium of popular culture, he became, among many other things, a great observer of religion, a brilliant political scientist, an unparalleled ancient historian (according to the late Paul Cantor, he a “profound thinker on the subject of ancient Rome”), and, yep, an important leadership guru. Such was the depth of his intellect that he could turn popular plays into something far deeper and more enduring.
I recently saw the new Spider-Man movie. The 14-year-old boy in me enjoyed it, but the real 64-year-old man cannot imagine that in 400 years people will be poring over the movie’s script looking for deep insights into the human condition. Shakespeare’s genius was almost without parallel, a fact that explains how he was able to do things beyond the reach even of Stan Lee and Peter Parker.
One of his insights on leadership goes to the question Mike asked me during the podcast: leadership is closely tied to theatrical performance. Theater works on an audience by touching some of our deepest human needs, e.g. empathy, enlightenment, and emotion. The best theater links the audience to a higher cause and can motivate its members to deeper understanding and action. In other words, theater at its best is like good leadership.
Most of Shakespeare’s great characters are conscious that they are playing a part: Hamlet is a consummate performer and uses a real theatrical performance to “catch the conscience of the King,” his murderous uncle. Prince Hal, before he becomes Henry V, confesses to the audience that his time carousing with Falstaff is all an act preparing him for his time as king. The devious Richard III shifts his character and his role constantly as he manipulates his way to the throne.
In other words, Shakespeare shows us that leadership at its heart is theatrical and performative. At the same time, the case of the murderous Richard III presents an important note of caution: theater is powerful, and a leader with a strong theatrical sense can be extraordinarily successful, but he or she can sow seeds of destruction if unmoored from wisdom. As you’ll see in A Memorable Honor, Shakespeare clearly understood thatleaders like Richard or Macbeth can “strut and fret their hour upon the stage” and rise to great heights but leave ruin in their wake if they embrace dishonesty, lack wisdom and fail to grasp the reality of their own fragility.
But performance in leadership is not per se dishonest or unwise. In fact, a wise theatrical sense is essential to successful leadership. Lincoln, a lifelong theatergoer and Shakespearean, understood this. His language and role – the rail-splitter turned President – created a specific theatrical persona that he used to defend the nation in the Civil War and achieve the previously unimaginable goal of emancipation.
That same theatrical sense is important for leaders today. It uses language, poetry and performance to tie people to a “higher honor,” a cause greater than themselves. That’s why Shakespeare’s insights on leadership seem so profound and natural: they are the outgrowth of his profession.
As a reminder, my book A Memorable Honor: Shakespeare, Lincoln, and the Art of Leadership is now an Amazon bestseller and hot new release. It will be published on September 15. You can preorder today on Amazon.com and the Barnes and Noble website.
Until next time.
Frank
P. S. If you haven’t done so, please add your name to the “Who Art Thou” link below to receive updates as we get closer to the September 15 publication of A Memorable Honor: Shakespeare, Lincoln, and the Art of Leadership.
