| Emotionally
Intelligent Leadership: An Insight from
Shakespeare
By Daniel Theyagu
The obvious question: What has Shakespeare anything
to do with leadership in a
modern organization. The answer is: Everything!
There is much we can learn from the 15th Century dramatist
– the great William
Shakespeare. In his 37 plays and countless sonnets Shakespeare
concocted in a dramatic
form some of the most astute observations of Human Emotions
that has much relevance
in today’s madcap world of constant changes and
changing moral beliefs.
By drawing insights from Shakespeare’s tragic,
comic and historic dramas we can
make significant and beneficial insights that assist
us to achieve a heighten state of
Emotional Balance.
Emotional Balance is the state of being that allows
us to realize who we are and
how we respond to our emotions. The concept of Emotional
Balance is based on the
ability to acknowledge and develop our Emotional Intelligence.
In a nutshell, Emotional
Intelligence or EI skills encompass two distinctive
and unifying forms of competencies:
Personal competency or Intrapersonal Intelligence on
the one hand and Social
competency or Interpersonal Intelligence on the other.
If you are in any form of
leadership position in your organization, you will realize
that developing your EI skills
will put you in a much better perspective of realizing
your own emotional state and thus
become more competent personally. This will allow you
then to develop a sense of
empathy to others and enhance your people skills. To
become more aware of your
emotional intelligence state, you can draw insights
from Shakespeare.
From the many characters that Shakespeare created
we can observe how their
ability or inability to access to and develop these
two forms of competencies created a
sense of dissonance and discord in their lives. Take
for instance, Hamlet – he was the
Prince of Denmark and had a vision of his dead father
whom he believes to have been
murdered by his uncle Claudius. Hamlet was tasked to
avenge his father’s death and to
bring justice. However, Hamlet’s failure was his
procrastination – famously epitomize in
the phrase: ‘to be or not to be… that’s
the question’. He was not personally competent
in the sense that he did not want to assert his authority
when he had the choice and rather
was side tracking the issues. This led to many deaths
before Hamlet decided to exact
justice for the death of his father with naturally tragic
consequences.
In a modern organization imagine working with a “Hamlet”
kind of character.
This is the kind of person who procrastinates and is
unable to sieve the important from
the unimportant. The “Hamlet” kinds
will be the ones who have a low sense of selfregard
and do not assert their authority when there is a real
need to do so. The “Hamlets”
in organization are unsure and unaware of their own
strength and weakness and their undecisive
attitude can cause great distress to the people they
are working with.
Leaders in organization can learn from Hamlet’s
tragic flaw. One of the most
potent qualities of an effective leader is to make hard
decisions. These are the kind of
decisions that the leader knows will cause grievance
and disagreement. But the leader
has to make it. To do this the leader needs to come
to a realization of his or her social
competency. This is the other aspect of EI skill that
constitutes the ability to empathize
and build effective relationship with people.
Again Shakespeare has something to contribute in terms
of another tragic
character – King Lear. Lear was an able king and
because of his age decided to give his
kingdom to his three daughters. But Lear’s fault
was his inability to empathize with
others and also a lack of understanding of the real
nature of what was going on around
him. In short he only wanted to hear the good things.
He wanted his three daughters to
profess their undivided love for him. In this process
Lear was unable to see the treachery
of his two elder daughters who poured out beautiful
praises for their father but in reality
just wanting a part of his kingdom. When Cordelia, his
youngest daughter professes her
love for him in a pragmatic manner, Lear felt insulted
and banished her only to realize
tragically that Cordelia was the one true person who
really loved him sincerely.
There are leaders today who are very much like King
Lear. They are effective
and efficient but are unable to take criticism for what
they are doing. They only want to
hear the good things. Sometimes because of their position
they might even exact from
people comments that serve only their interest without
finding out truly what is the real
nature of things around them. This might be well and
good when things are smooth
sailing in organization. However, when uncertainty strikes
the ‘Lear- type’ leaders are
totally unprepared and sometimes meet tragic consequences.
The whole concept of organizational success is to bring
the best out in people.
This can only be achieved when the management emotionally
connects with the people
working in the organization. To achieve this, organizational
leaders need to develop
effective listening and presentation skills that captures
the minds of the people. In Julius
Caesar, Shakespeare supinely illustrates in the passionate
speech by Mark Antony on the
death of Caesar: ‘ friends, Romans and countrymen…lend
me your ears…’. In reality
today, this is about communication. Leaders need to
communicate – period.
But communication by itself draws its own set of problems.
Emotionally
intelligent leaders need to have their reality check
done regularly. They need to know the
source of the information and verify the nature. In
Othello, Iagos was the right hand man
of Othello. Iagos instigated with extreme subtlety of
Othello’s wife, Desdemona having
an affair with one of Othello’s lieutenant, Michael
Cassio. Othello for all his great ability
as a warrior and general was jealously blinded by this
information of his wife’s alleged
love affair and tragically murdered his wife only to
realize that she loved none other then
him alone. Othello was unable to see through the treachery
of Iagos and although he had
ample opportunities to verify the truth of the information
that he received from Iagos,
Othello chose just to listen to Iagos.
There are many leaders who have so called ‘trusted’
employees in their company.
Although trust is an important quality leaders should
develop, it is important to ensure
that leaders do not create a political climate in their
organization by showing favoritism
with a few employees and being reserve in their attitude
with others. This kind of
behaviour is a sure fire way to the organization’s
destruction. We can learn from Othello
by making sure that we do not allow ourselves to become
‘emotionally hijacked’. This is
when our toxic emotions like anger, jealousy, greed,
lust and hatred takes control of us
and usurps our rationality.
How many times have we been fed with untrue information
by people who intend
to bring discord to organization? Rumour mongers are
the profit sappers of organization.
They create mis-trust and mis-understanding that can
create great problems if not
checked when you have the opportunity to do so.
When we are given information from sources that we
think may not be reliable,
we need to learn to discard the information instantly
or verify the source to ensure its
credibility. Otherwise, we might be lead on a wild goose
chase ending in nothing.
Macbeth is perhaps one of Shakespeare’s greatest
tragic characters. Macbeth had it all
and yet his greed and his inability to be self-aware
of himself and his lack of self-regard
was the cause of his tragic downfall.
Macbeth wanted the throne of Scotland. Together with
his wife, he plots and kills
the King. But the conscience of his act torments him.
He feels remorse but instead of
acknowledging his wrongdoing, he was sapped into a whirlpool
of self-destruction.
I can’t help wondering how many modern organizations
have characters like
Macbeth. Instead of working hard and setting their own
goals, they choose to seize
another person’s career just to pursue theirs.
Macbeth teaches us about how not to outsmart
ourselves by using our intellect to do things that we
know is wrong or goes against
our principles. When we outsmart ourselves we will see
our lives as meaningless as there
will be no joy in what we think we’ve achieved.
As Shakespeare puts it in Macbeth:
“…Life’s a walking shadow, a poor
player that struts and frets upon the stage. And then
it is heard no more for it is a tale full of sound and
fury. Signifying nothing!” This is
probably what will happen if we do not pay heed to our
inner voice of conscience from
time to time to see whether we are doing the right thing.
Much as Shakespeare’s plays are almost half
a millennium old, their relevance
today in a modern organization is undeniable. As we
move faster and faster in our
technologically driven world, perhaps it’s about
time we take a step back and see how we
are progressing as a human being emotionally. That’s
what separates us from the rest of
the Animal Kingdom. Polonius in Hamlet tells his son
Laertes “…to thine own self be
true…” This in essence is what we need
to do. Be true to yourself so that you can take
on whatever challenges life throws at you and be able
to strive especially when
uncertainty strikes.
About the author:
Daniel Theyagu is a keynote speaker and seminar leader
for conferences and training
programmes. He runs Lateral Solutions Consultancy which
designs and conducts
competency-based training for organizations He is also
an adjunct lecturer with
Management Development Institute of Singapore (MDIS)
.
For seminars and workshop enquiries:
E-mail: dtheyagu@singnet.com.sg; website: www.thinklaterally.com.
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