Shakespeare on Management
I never knew that Shakespeare had to do with management, but after reading this book it
made me realize the true importance of being a manager, and the way that real managers
act toward their employees. I used to think that Management was just about giving orders
and keeping the business on track but after reading this book I recognized that there is a lot
more to management than that. Shakespeare wrote plays that were full of contradiction and
ambiguity. He chose many different dramatic ways of building ambiguity into his plays.
He used strong characters, fools, and scoundrels to give his leaders different messages. The
world of Management also has its ambiguities, and when it doesnt recognize this it fails.
What managers can learn from this book is that there are people who have similar
problems to ours and we can learn from their experience.
Every book argues that without leadership, managers and businesses will fail, along with
the idea that leadership is the quality that is missing every day of real managers.
Shakespeare characters demonstrated different ways that leadership could be provided.
Until the sixteenth century, almost everybody believed that leaders were born and not
made. Shakespeare argued about this point of view. Some of the leaders that he created
failed because they based their power on the fact that they were born to be leaders.
In Shakespeare (Peter and Waterman, 1982: 75) the point that Peter is trying to make is
that great leaders make meanings for their staff, which means that they provide their staff
with the importance of communicating motivation. In Shakespeare Henry the fifth speech
during the battle of Harfleur. They are in a war with the French, but the French has a
strong defense and Henry troops start giving up. Henry makes a speech to them that truly
gives an example of leadership.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead
On on, you noblest English,
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn til even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument;
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you calld fathers did beget you
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble luster in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start.
The game afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
