Abstract
Shakespeare has been widely recognized as a dramaturgist who through his intriguing pageantry of kings presents an effective text of leadership, communication and management that has inspired hosts of modern day business practitioners. Yet it is interesting to note that the management perspective which Shakespeare seems to espouse has emanated from the cultural ethos of his native country, Great Britain. Britain has been portrayed by prominent interculturists such as Geert Hofstede, Fons Trompenaars, Edward T. Hall as a low power distance, weak uncertainty avoidance, low-context culture with high masculinity and individualism index, demonstrating achievement and inner-directed value orientations. Even Global Leadership and Organizational Behaviour Effectiveness (GLOBE) study in its cultural taxonomy identifies a ramification of Anglo-cluster leadership model with a distinct skill set which includes Great Britain. The character lineaments of Shakespeare’s king leaders present congruence with the leadership profiles defined for diverse cultural demarcations by these seminal works on cross-cultural management with remarkable fidelity thereby endorsing the view that culture and leadership are inextricably woven together in a symbiotic engagement. The article applies theories of intercultural management to the leadership, communication and management inferences that can be drawn from the literature of this bard of Avon to reach the conclusion that this master craftsman evinces a strong cultural affiliation to his native country in offering his sagacious exhortations which are designed for an English audience and hence, cannot be transplanted in the Oriental part of the world without indigenizing them in the process of transposition to fit into foreign cultural constructs. Thus, in order to be globally relevant an intercultural reading of Shakespeare has to be practised with systemic mutations in his scripts in order to offer an effective transnational discourse to management practitioners keeping in view the plurality of disparate socio-cultural business contexts.
Introduction
Shakespeare has produced a huge canon of work portraying complexities of human psychology which have been gainfully employed in understanding the challenges of leadership and management in modern business contexts. ‘Shakespeare’s genius in exploring the motivations of men and women, great and small, his uncanny insight into what is obvious but we cannot see, is a huge resource for any businessperson.’ (Whitney & Packer 2000) Shakespeare’s plays such as Henry V, Julius Caesar, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Hamlet have been quoted often as sources of consultations to corporate practitioners on a gamut of managerial challenges such as motivating employees in business predicament, handling competition, turning inimical workforce into staunch followers by art of persuasion, dealing with problems of succession in family business, the hazards of being hijacked mentally by yes-men, dismissing insolently advice of loyal coworkers, being enthralled by unbridled ambition, dealing with ethical dilemmas and many other knotty management issues.
Although most of these words of wisdom are universal and hence, are not circumscribed by limitations of cultural heterogeneity, yet it is interesting to probe them through the filter lenses of various cultural dimensions. Since business has now mostly become cross-cultural in its operations, it is interesting to apply various cultural theories to Shakespeare’s managerial offerings. This paper aims at scrutinizing whether the managerial exhortations presented by this bard of Avon can be applied to diverse cultural contexts or they are predominately Anglican like the theories of leadership, motivation and management propounded by Occidental thinkers, which came under scanner recently for their application limitations owing to cultural variations in the business world.
Literature Review
Books such as Power Plays by John O. Whitney and Tina Packer (Whitney & Packer 2000) Bardisms: Shakespeare for All Occasions (Edelstein 2009) Shakespeare on Management (Corrigan 1999) are some of the works presenting Shakespeare as a management consultant par excellence. Works like these trace through the mellifluous verses of this Globe theatre artist various nuggets of sagacity which corporate heads can use to steer their wobbling careers in today’s turbulent financial times. Shakespeare has been presented by many authors as a genius who can offer his own canon of principles and practices of leadership and motivation. Now the question is whether Shakespeare can act as a mentor for English managers as well as the management practitioners functioning in other cultural constructs in chartering the careers of their leadership progressions. It was Geert Hofstede who pointed out at culture as an important variable in the application of leadership styles and motivation techniques (Hofstede 1980).
Hofstede dubbed the popular theories of motivation like Herzeberg’s two-factor theory, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, McGregor’s theory X and theory Y, etc. as American in relevance. Since then many theories which are culture specific have been proposed and propounded like Management and Cultural Values—The Indigenization of Organizations in Asia (Kao, H.S.R., Sinha, D., & Wilpert B. eds, 1999), Theory Z: How American Business Can Meet the Japanese Challenge by Prof. William Ouchi (Ouchi 1993), Performance Maintenance Leadership by a Japanese scholar, Prof. J. Misumi, Cranfield University study for leadership styles in Europe (French 2007), the paternal model of leadership style practised in Southeast Asia by Robert Westwood.
It will be interesting to note that even Western authors have acknowledged the potent impact of culture as the moulding force that shapes life, literature, politics, institutions and social physiology as a whole. Edward W. Said in his book Orientalism (1977) has probed in-depth the anthropological, philological, social, political and psychological processes that have led to the divide between the orient and the occident attributing this schism to the colonial mindset that has divided the geographic map of the world into the supremacy-subjugation framework. In this paper, however, attempt is not made to historicize cultural differences situating them into the colonizer-colonized paradigm which engenders racist, imperialistic and ethnocentric vainglorious notions that hold the Western intellectual wealth as superior to the Eastern system of knowledge and connote ‘the high-handed executive attitude of nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century European colonialism’ (Said 1977). This paper merely iterates that culture is a puissant driver that gives wider meaning to the scholastic and literary texts authored. Hence, the modern studies studying culture and its impact on management and leadership styles can be said to be perpetuating the tradition of acknowledging rather than negating cultural differences by employing euphemistic rhetoric of a homogeneous global village; ‘…a very large mass of writers, among whom are administrators, have accepted the basic distinction between East and West as the starting point for elaborate theories, epics, novels, social descriptions and political accounts concerning the Orient, its people, customs, ‘mind,’ destiny and so on’ (Said 1977).
Although we have numerous such culture specific studies, but Global Leadership and Organizational Behaviour Effectiveness (GLOBE) project is one of the few studies in the world that has analyzed leadership practitioners in the context of cultures all over the world. GLOBE is a cross-cultural research project which was initiated in 1991. The project deployed researchers that worked in 62 different cultures to get an opulent data to explore the culture-management connect. This project involved a 14 member international team, which garnered data from as many as 17,300 middle managers in 951 organizations. The project was developed by Robert J. House from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (Northouse 2006). The project culminated into finding how culture can dramatically change the quintessential core of managerial leadership and thereby fortified the importance of cross-cultural studies in management training.
Thus, when the management principles and practices espoused in different parts of the world defy reduction to the homogeneity of one particular model, the applicability of Shakespearean stratagems may also have a limited localized impact, that is, they conform to the Anglican principles and practices of leadership and management. As Edward W. Said wrote in his work Orientalism (1977), ‘My principal operating assumptions were—and continue to be—that fields of learning, as much as the works of even the most eccentric artist are constrained and acted upon by society, by cultural traditions, ….’ (Said 1977). Hence, the scholar here attempts to present some of the most popular management interpretations of this dramaturgist’s scripts in the light of the cultural dimensions of Hofstede, Trompenaars, Hall and the GLOBE study with a view to ratify or repudiate their universal relevance in today’s multi-cultural managerial environment.
Let us review the cultural studies done by Geert Hofstede, Fons Trompenaars, Edward T. Hall along with the findings of the GLOBE project before testing them on Shakespearean texts.
Hofstede’s Study
Hofstede delineates the following dimensions of national culture:
Power distance Individualism Masculinity and femininity Uncertainty avoidance Long-term Orientation
Power distance refers to the dimension of hierarchy in a society. Certain societies are hierarchical in the sense that the status difference is steep and dictates the interpersonal relationship and communication styles, while certain societies are egalitarian where judgement is not presided over by the label of social or professional designation. In high power distance society the leader is mostly autocratic and takes decisions himself. The subordinates accept his decisions with unquestioning compliance. But in low power distance societies subordinates also enjoy certain powers and participate in the decision-making process. Leaders act as mentors and function in a more democratic fashion. Great Britain is a low power distance society; hence, the leadership style espoused is participatory.
The dimension of individualism refers to the concept of society as a group of individuals or as a collective entity. Society where individualism is high is a society that believes that individuals have a right to think of their personal aggrandizement. If an individual takes care of himself the society is automatically taken care of. Here leaders motivate their people to work by promise of personal rewards and incentives. Great Britain is high on individuality index. Leaders in cultures with low individualism do not use lure of personal advancement since the act of seeking self-satisfaction is considered a sordid act in these societies. In these cultures leaders only use group goals as directive for motivation.
Masculine cultures are cultures which encourage risk taking for massive gains. Leaders in such cultures win encomium for setting elusive goals and for courting risks for their attainment. Feminine cultures may not value such leaders who are aggressive.
Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions and Great Britian (Hofstede 2003)
Hofstede’s Dimensions and Motivation (Hofstede 2003)
Lastly leaders in weak uncertainty avoidance cultures are considered competent if they are open to trying something new even if it entails risk owing to uncertainty. But leaders in high uncertainty avoidance cultures are expected to take calculated moves.
Great Britain, Shakespeare’s country of origin, ranks in top ten on the parameters of low power distance, high individualism, high masculinity and low uncertainty avoidance.
This is what Hofstede has to say regarding motivation and leadership for culture of this profile.
The leadership traits Hofstede assigns to the parameters of low power distance, individualistic, masculine and weak uncertainty avoidance cultures (the parameters that delineate the cultural profile of Great Britain—Shakespeare’s native country) are very well reflected in the Shakespearean leaders as discussed in next section.
Hofstede’s Dimensions and Leadership (Punnet 2004)
Globe Country Clusters
In the GLOBE study Great Britain figures in the Anglo cluster to which the leadership traits attributed are mentioned in Table 4.
Globe Country Cluster and Preferred Leadership Style (Northouse 2006)
Some of the cultural ramifications proposed by Fons Trompenaars which are relevant here are achievement-oriented versus ascription-oriented and inner-directed versus outer-directed countries.
In achievement-oriented cultures people are judged on the basis of their work, while in ascription cultures one is valued for what one is, on the bases of family background, gender, age.
The UK is an achievement-oriented culture; here gaining ground by exhibiting performance gets more value than simply deriving power from the mere labels of designations or titles. Thus, a leader cannot assert his authority over subordinates only because he is a leader. He can only win the support of his followers if he performs as an effective leader.
Trompenaars’ inner-directed cultures are ones with internal locus of control and the UK qualifies in this category. Shakespeare seems to be following Trompenaars when again and again he reiterates that man is architect of his own destiny. In his great tragedies it is the fatal flaw in a Shakespearean king that propels him to doom rather than his circumstantial destiny.
The author proposes that the leadership models Shakespeare presents are in congruence with the cultural dimensions of his native country, Great Britain as depicted by the GLOBE study and by intercultural communication exponents such as Hofstede, Hall and Trompenaars. Particularly, Shakespeare’s Henry V is perfectly modelled on Great Britain’s value orientations. Here it is relevant to note that ample critical scholarship has been practised by many postcolonial theorists on rereading, rediscovering and reconstructing Shakespeare in his de-anglicized avatars with a concentration on art, anthropology, civilization, historicizing and politicizing the problems of decolonization, protoimperial oppression, cultural racism, marginalization, hybridity, subversion and the position of the subaltern. This critical paradigm includes works like Shakespeare without English: The Reception of Shakespeare in Non-Anglophone Countries (2006) by Sukanta Chaudhuri and Chee Seng Lim, Respositioning Shakespeare: National Formations, Postcolonial Appropriations (1999) by Thomas Cartelli, Post-Colonial Shakespeares (1998) edited by Anita Loomba and Martin Orkin. But till now no work has been done on deconstructing the leadership and management messages derived from the bard’s portraitures of his dramatis personae in the light of the cultural hegemony and the cultural heterogeneity that dictate power systems in disparate geo-political centres of the business world.
Trompenaars’ Dimensions and the UK (Trompenaars 1993)
Methodology
The paper outlines the various cultural dimensions as expounded by Hofstede, Trompenaars, Hall and GLOBE study, which represent some of the seminal works done across the globe in intercultural management and culls popular quotations and examples from the bard’s literature and presents their interpreted semantics in the light of these cultural studies.
Edward T. Hall’s concept of low-context versus high-context cultures is also used to demonstrate the impact of cultural values on communication style (Hall 1999).
Anthropologist Edward T. Hall is credited with coining the concept of high- and low-context cultures. In high-context cultures semantics are deciphered from subtle contextual clues, not necessarily transmuted in words. Thus, verbal communication is not the prime engine for conveying the train of thoughts in communicators’ minds. Communication hence, is indirect and implied meanings gain currency. In low-context cultures explicit, clear and direct communication is appreciated. Verbal codes are deciphered and carry the weight of the message. Hence, language is important and acts as an important tool of persuasion. If nations are plotted along a diagonal continuum, one finds that Eastern (Asian) cultures are more towards high context communication profile, while Arab and Mediterranean cultures get middle placement, whereas Western cultures (the US, Canada and Western European) fall towards the low-context pole. Thus, English culture is a low-context culture where linguistic dexterity is important and leaders persuade their subjects deploying language as a tool. If we scan Shakespearean plays, we find that some of the greatest persuasive speakers in literature, Henry V, Mark Antony and Portia use verbal adroitness for persuasion and argumentation. The paper employs quotes of dialogues culled from the oratorical repertoire of these characters that clearly demonstrate how clear, emphatic, strategically planned verbal codes are used to motivate audience and prove a certain point as is the case with low-context cultures. In high-context countries like Japan clear, direct, explicit communication is considered blunt and hence, lacks persuasive prowess. Here Enryo-Sasshi communication is followed: encoding sparely but multilevel understanding—enryo (small exit) for talking—sasshi (wide entrance) for listening. Thus, speaking less is the password. Here silence can be more effective than scrolls of orations (Beamer & Varner 2011). India is also a high-context culture. As opined by A.K. Ramanujan in his essay, Is there an Indian Way of Thinking? (1989),
No Indian literary text comes without a context …. We need to attend to the context-sensitive designs that embed a seeming variety of modes (tale, discourse, poem, etc.) and materials. This manner of constructing the text is in consonance with other designs in the culture. No unity (in the Aristotelian sense) but coherence seems to be the end (Ramanujan 1989).
Thus, Ramanujan distinctly establishes that there is a huge difference in the communication pattern of the East and the West. Quoting a Tamil poem as a typical example of Indian style of communication, he writes:
Tamil (and Sanskrit) lyrics are all dramatic monologues; they imply the whole ‘communication diagram’ … the poetry of such a poem depends on a taxonomy of landscapes, flora and fauna, and of emotions—an ecosystem of which a man’s activities and feelings are a part. To describe the exterior landscape is also to inscribe the interior landscape …. Neither in the Tamil poem nor in the upanisadic passages does the Lévi-Staussian opposition of nature-culture make sense … we have a nature-culture continuum … (Ramanujan 1989).
Elaborating this difference between the West and India further he writes, ‘Even space and time, the universal contexts, the Kantian imperatives, are in India not uniform and neutral…’ (Ramanujan 1989). Thus, one cannot fully agree with what Whitney and Packer assert in their book Power Plays, ‘No matter how different cultures are, the ways of power appear as a constant whether in medieval England, in tribal Africa, in Communist China, or in corporate America’ (Whitney & Packer 2000).
Thus, this paper is organized on the basis of various cultural dimensions of England that find resonance in Shakespeare’s works and hence, in turn shape his leadership, communication and management principles.
Discussion
Shakespeare’s Biographical Sketch
Before discussing various cultural dimensions to test the universality of Shakespeare’s management principles, here is a brief review of Shakespeare’s life.
Although Shakespeare is venerated world over as an artist of enormous talent, yet it is interesting to see that he was not an archetypal artist living in his ivory tower and languishing in penury. On the contrary, he was an affluent businessman who knew how to manage people, market his talent, network with those in power, run his Globe theatre as a profit-churning enterprise. He wrote about leadership not because he had a penchant for the subject but because there was a public demand for it,
At a time when the average citizen’s ability to participate in public life was limited or non-existent, it was natural that instead of thinking about political structures and functions people would be more inclined to watch the pageantry of greatness, the rise and the fall of the very few who had power (Leggatt 1988).
His father was also a businessman and hence, he was equipped with both, experience and merit of a successful entrepreneur who perhaps stands as some of the very few towering literary figures marrying ‘bardism’ to business. Hence, he is fully qualified to act as a management thinker and guide to those braving the vicissitudes of their precarious business careers.
Link with Modern Management
Managing organizations was a challenge in the era of Shakespeare too. In those days kings, queens, dukes, lords were the leaders who either led their subordinates (in this case subjects) successfully or failed miserably in discharging their leadership functions. It is noteworthy that most of the Shakespeare’s plays are stories about leadership rather than of romantic love.
Play after play taught the audience lessons about how leaders organized their rise and how their failures precipitated their fall. It is not surprising that many of Shakespeare’s plays are about politics, authority and power. Many more of his plays tell stories of leadership than of romantic love (Corrigan 1999).
His stories recount the rise and fall of their protagonists who advise, admonish and answer many quandaries besetting contemporary business leaders. Many corporate leaders have found sustenance in the dramas of this bard of Avon.
Shakespeare’s Henry V and the English Culture
In lieu of explicating abstract notions of authority, Shakespeare presented his leadership concepts through his protagonists. He depicts leaders with whom readers can identify easily. In his plays, leaders who believe that their title entitles them to unbridled power and hence, unquestioning compliance from their followers precipitate their own debacle as their modern counterparts-senior managers manning organizations, who believe that their designation gives them autonomy to act independently. For example, Richard II opines that his title vests in him the power to expect unflinching compliance from his subjects. King Lear has a delusion that he continues to be in power despite giving away preposterously the land from which he derives his power. Antony believed that power does not come from Rome (the state that bestowed power on him) but is enshrined in him and can be used as he wished. All these characters who seem to repose their credence in ascription-oriented system (see Table 5) that values one on the basis of what one is instead of what one does meet an ignominious debacle. Shakespeare opines that leaders are not born but are made—a leader has to prove his competence rather than use coercion to steer his followers in his favour. That is why we find Henry V trying to motivate his soldiers by infusing in them zest to encounter risky challenges and lures them by offering rewards instead of using power to quell the dissenting voices.
Henry V declares:
But I will rise there with so full a glory
That I will dazzle all the eyes of France….
Here, Henry V seems to portray the leadership style of a high masculine culture, that is., the culture of Great Britain (see Table 3). Leaders in high masculine cultures earn encomium for setting elusive goals and braving risks in their endeavours to attain them. The masculine trait of aggressiveness defines their competence. They crave for lofty targets even if it involves putting at stake all their might. Henry V comes out as a typical English character when he declares war on the mighty French in spite of having an army saddled with many ill-fated constraints. In feminine cultures aggression, setting ambitions that entail huge risk does not meet approbation. These cultures believe in leading a relaxed, secure life, balancing material aims with personal satiation in order to enjoy life rather than making it a tough career graded by difficult milestones. In certain Asian cultures material aggrandizement is an ugly trait. Here if someone tries to take risk for upping his temporal career he comes under social scanner and earns scorn of his societal comrades.
Henry asserts:
…No, my fair cousin:
If we are marked to die, we are enough
To do our country loss, and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
Here he demonstrates how personal rewards (tangible or intangible motivate people in individualistic and masculine cultures-see Table 2) In collective cultures like that of Confucian Asian countries like China, Japan, trying to compare, compete and conquer over one’s peers is an abhorrent tendency. One should think of sharing one’s honour with others in the group one belongs to (organization, nation) instead of reserving it to one’s credit and feeling triumphant in owning it. Thus, ‘the fewer the men, the greater share of honour’ cannot act as motivational mantra here.
He further fortifies our notion of culture-centric motivation when he says:
But if it be a sin to covet honour
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God’s peace, I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more, methinks, would share from me
For the best hope I have. O do not wish one more!
‘… do not wish one more!’ will meet disapproval and castigation in Confucian Asia since the speaker is exhorting the audience to covet for honour that is denied to others in a group (here one’ own country) and is trying to sell the idea of excelling over one’s compatriots by aspiring for individual aggrandizement at the expense of others. Such concept of self-centred success which motivates people in individualistic and masculine cultures is unpalatable in some cultures on the oriental side of the globe where self-effacement is encouraged. Thus, motivation is culture-driven and here Shakespeare is giving motivation mantra to leaders which may work only in Anglican cultures:
And gentlemen in England now abed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks,
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day
The quotation cited earlier is again culled from Henry’s speech that demonstrates how he continues to build on the tradition of experiencing glory in the achievement denied to others.
Henry V offers munificent incentives after victory, by promising to convert commoners into gentlemen with land and title. Material reward is an important motivator in masculine cultures (see Table 2). In these cultures getting work done with promise of material reward yields efficacious upshot since people are conditioned to gauge social success of an individual by the yardstick of his or her own material credentials. Thus, one hankers to earn more and more material might in order to climb higher social echelons and hence, here diligence can be extracted by demonstrating monetary gains involved. Since Henry V is an English leader trying to infuse zest in his English followers he knows that here the lure of land and title will buy him the loyalties of his army against French. But this may not be the case with other cultures. In collective cultures, for instance, targeting team goals and winning team support gets the premium, whereas, in feminine cultures quality of life one leads is more important than the report card flashing monetary gains.
If one puts Henry V in the context of preferred leadership style according to GLOBE clusters, he fits into the Anglo cluster which delineates the leadership style as charismatic, based on espousal of certain values, encouraging participation and demonstrating sensitivity to people (see Table 4). While the leadership traits that work in other cultures are different, for instance, in the Middle East, Confucian Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, Nordic Europe leaders are self-protective who give importance to face-saving and their own status. Henry V is not at all self-protective. He is ready to put at stake everything he has and endeavours to fire the same spark in his army to take risk of waging war against the mighty French. In Confucian Asia and Southern Asia leaders are not participative; they take independent decisions. In Eastern Europe leaders are highly autonomous, taking strong decisions with a view to protecting their own status. Here Henry V is enrolling the participation of his followers by inspiring them in lieu of taking decisions independently and ordering them to follow. Thus, the profile of leaders who are autocratic, paternalistic, face-saving, self-protective is in sharp contrast to the leadership model propounded by this bard of Avon in his Henry V.
Facilitating Seamless Upward Communication—Low Power Distance Culture
Fools provide feedback to kings which serve the purpose of giving direction to their leaders. The characters of Fool in King Lear and Falstaff in Henry IV, Part I and II, are presented as corrective agents who give remedial messages to their masters. This practice of seamless upward communication finds its reverberation in the modern management system of instituting a company feedback mechanism that provides insight to CEOs. Some companies give their managers right to send their feedback to CEO, even anonymously. Richard Branson of the Virgin Group invites ideas from all his employees and gives his employees a free scope to be creative and innovative. Thus, like Prince Hal he is open to be tutored by his Falstaffs. The Fool in King Lear and Falstaff in Henry IV, Part I and II, are strong characters who provide messages to their masters which represent stark unadorned realities, divested of superficial embellishments. Shakespeare’s subplots direct our attention towards the vital role of the support staff; one can get great learning, especially from Lear’s Fool on how to advise leaders.
This is primarily possible in cultures with low power distance which encourage upward communication. In Confucian Asian cultures like that of Japan and China, ideas are judged primarily on the criteria of designation tags. Once again here Shakespeare seems to be endorsing the ways of low power distance and low context cultures (Hall, 1999).
Modern day management exponents in the West recognize the worth of motivating and communicating with the staff in congruence with Shakespeare, which is an essential but difficult task. Leaders have to work hard to provide meaning to their staff, meaning to their work. Shakespeare’s Henry V anticipates Frederick Winslow Taylor, Richard T. Crane, Tom Peters, Peter Drucker and Henry Ford in follower empowerment, ‘The most effective leaders, political or corporate, empower others to act—and grow….. The leader’s job is at once to articulate the empowering vision, and to stay in touch with followers …’ (Peters 1989).
Henry V’s speech is what a manager would like to deliver to his followers, which exudes confidence that is infectious. He is able to create certainty in staff. Henry motivates his staff by giving their work a wider meaning, on a personal level, as well as on national level for their country by exhorting them to combat the adversaries like their great fathers did. Leader’s ability to deliver such a motivational message springs from his learning the art of communication with the staff. Henry spent a long time with people before being anointed as king to learn how they communicate. He reminds the modern readers of Jack Welch, who led a giant like General Electric and Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Group who believes in harvesting ideas from their workforce. Richard Branson of Virgin Airways endorses this practice adopted by Henry V when he opines that the leaders should have a strong knowledge about the subordinates they manage.
Managers who employ only formal communication channels and do not espouse the practice of relinquishing their snobbish offices to know their employees will only get the information which their subordinates allow them to share. A manager can act effectively only if he can understand the people who are working with him. He has to remove the high-handed barriers that create leader-subordinate schism by walking around and taking stock of the situation. It is this model of leadership that Henry V demonstrates. On the eve of the battle of Agincourt he moves around to explore what his army is contemplating about the difficult encounter they are about to face the next day. He discovers that his soldiers have an abysmally low morale to war since they have to face an adversarial army which is numerically very large as compared to their strength. This crestfallen army sparks his motivational ‘St. Crispin’s Day’ address. He instils zest in his soldiers to combat a mammoth army by convincing them that if they lose, the numbers do not hold any significance, but if they win, ‘the fewer men, the greater share of honour.’ By dint of his inspirational words he is able to expel from the hearts of his men the trepidation that paralyzes their action and is able to immortalize in the annals of history the triumph of the English army in the battle of Agincourt.
Most of Shakespeare’s plays deal with the debacle of leadership. These leadership tragedies provide useful insights to the modern managers who wish to succeed in their managerial functions by avoiding mistakes that can cost them dear. For instance, the saga of Richard II forecasts the downfall of those who believe in the powers inherent in the titles they are born with (ascription-oriented versus achievement-oriented culture–the UK is achievement-oriented culture—see Table 5). On the other hand, we have Henry V whom Shakespeare has portrayed as an exemplar to be emulated for those who wish to internalize the essence of a victorious leadership. Henry V emerges as a leader who helps his followers to develop their innate capacities and motivates them to work innovatively by rewarding their meritorious performances. He models the leadership style of masculine culture (see Table 3).
Coriolanus fails because he does not have affinity with his followers:
You common cry of curs! Whose breath I hate
As reek o’ th’ rotten fens, whose loves I prize
As the dead carcasses of unburied men
That do corrupt my air: I banish you!
This entire approach of giving importance to one’s subordinates and delegating to them the power to speak their minds and participate in decision-making process is characteristic of a low power distance culture like that of Great Britain.
Leadership and Cultural Dimension of Masculinity
Curiously enough, there are no woman leaders in Shakespeare’s literary corpus barring Cleopatra. This shows that though Shakespeare was writing in the Elizabethan regime, he took no inspiration from Queen Elizabeth. In this sense Shakespeare seems to be following the English culture again which is masculine in character (see Table 1).
Giving Autonomy to Subordinates
Since Henry V is able to bring his army under his banner by uniting them with a common purpose to fight for their homeland honour, he does not need to exercise coercion to get his men’s support for his cause. His St. Crispin’s Day speech is a marvel of follower engagement and empowerment—Henry V is ready to liberate any soldier from his authority who does not want to combat the upcoming battle and risk his life. He goes to the extent of assuring that he is ready to sponsor trips of soldiers back to England who wish to quit. He knows that fighting with a small army of loyal followers is better than to fight with an army large in number but scant in inspiration.
Here again Henry V demonstrates the cultural traits that Hofstede assigns to the leaders of Great Britain, who are profiled as preferring a participative and consultative leadership style (low power distance), taking inputs from the subordinates, valuing the autonomy of the subordinates, not expecting loyalty from subordinates but trying to demonstrate their own competence (Individualistic culture; Great Britain ranks 3 with a score of 89). Leaders focus on achieving difficult performance goals, offer high achievers tangible benefits, like Henry V offers to his followers by assuring them that he would elevate their status so that they become at par with his own stature (masculine culture). (Hofstede 2003):
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;….
Since English culture is a low power distance culture here leaders are not venerated for being leaders. Leaders can earn reverence by giving respect to their followers, as Henry does when he calls his soldiers ‘band of brothers.’ Henry addresses his top staff by name, a typical low-power distance culture practice. Henry gives complete autonomy to his followers (see Table 3). He knew that some of his men were hesitant to fight owing to the colossal constraints that his army had to struggle with. History chronicles that Henry’s army had to march in dire conditions. There was dearth of food. There were torrents of rains that had drenched his army. Many of them contracted dysentery owing to drinking contaminated water. And they were facing the French menace—French knights who were relaxed and better equipped. Hence, there were many soldiers who wanted to avert the war and rush back to England.
But Henry responds to these challenges in a very effective manner. In lieu of cajoling those who wished to quit to support him he did something unique—he offered them the wherewithal to go for a smooth transit to their homes:
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
Here again he follows the leadership trait Hofstede attributes to low uncertainty avoidance cultures—leaders offer their subordinates flexibility in finding solutions to their problems (see Table 3).
Shakespeare’s Take on Autocratic Style of Leadership, Innovation Management and Opportunities
Shakespeare is completely against autocratic style of leadership:
The abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins
Remorse from power.
One of the reasons behind Henry’s victorious win against odds was his openness to change, his flexibility to accommodate and experiment with something new—his flair for innovation (open to change—low uncertainty avoidance). The English employed trained long bowmen while the French used the slower and less accurate means of crossbow.
As Lucio says in Measure for Measure:
Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt.
Here Shakespeare seems to advocate weak uncertainty avoidance using Lucio as his mouthpiece. Weak uncertainty avoidance also implies taking quick decisions without thinking too much about the risk involved and to grab opportunities unlike people in countries like Japan who take long time to arrive at business decisions.
Brutus’s exhortation is same in Julius Caesar:
There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
Trompenaars’ Cultural Dimension—Inner-Directed versus Outer-Directed Countries
Outer-directed cultures perceive the environment to be more powerful than man. Here many people believe that what happens to them is beyond their control. People from inner-directed cultures perceive that the major forces reside within themselves; motivations and values are derived from within. Here people believe what happens to them is of their own doing. The UK and the US are inner-directed cultures as against outer-directed cultures such as China, Japan and India. Shakespeare endorsed inner-directed culture; we have the following quotation from Julius Caesar as an illustration:
Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
Trompenaars’ Cultural Dimension—Ascription versus Achievement-Oriented Countries
Great Britain is achievement-oriented and not ascription-oriented culture. Shakespeare denounces ascription-oriented power beliefs when he illustrates through his characters Richard II in Richard II and Antony in Antony and Cleopatra a tragic trajectory from pompous power to a debilitating doom ascribing this fatal fate to an unflinching credence in ascription power emanating from titular majestic designations. Richard II courts his own pathetic catastrophe when he expounds his theory of ascription-oriented power:
Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm off from an anointed king;
The breath of worldly men cannot depose
The deputy elected by the Lord
He is left to moan at the end,
…nothing can we call our own but death
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God’s sake let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings
Leggatt rightly observes:
In no other play of Shakespeare’s is the office of kingship subjected to such intense scrutiny …. Richard himself is one of Shakespeare’s sharpest studies of a personality. Intensifying the scrutiny of the office, he was bound, it seems, to intensify the scrutiny of the man, and to test man and office against each other (Leggatt 1988).
Corrigan alluding to Shakespeare’s denouncement of ascription-oriented power systems states, ‘His Richard II is written to appear weak and capricious, demonstrating precisely what happens in the modern world when you just depend on ascribed authority ….’ (Corrigan 1999)
Low-Context Culture—Direct Communication Style
Edward T. Hall places England in the band of low context cultures—cultures that rely on direct and explicit verbal messages instead of relying more on contextual clues as is the case of high-context cultures like Japan, China, India, France, etc (Hall, 1999). Low-context cultures value verbal messages:
…mend your speech a little
Lest it may mar your Fortunes
The toughest job for Henry V is to animate his army to wage the battle against the opulent militia of the French. But Henry knew that with gift of the gab one can stir the hearts of these men and inject in them a new elixir of courage. Thus, like a leader operating his team in a low-context culture he employs magnificent speeches to get munificent support of his people:
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips
Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot!
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry, ‘God for Harry! England and Saint George!’
Henry uses what Mary Munter calls inoculation technique in her book Guide to Managerial Communication (Munter 2011) when he tries to answer their unvoiced objections through his persuasive oration. By inoculation technique Munter means doing audience analysis, exploring the possible objections the audience members might raise and then refuting them in your persuasive message before anybody in the audience brings them up. Henry does exactly that. He anticipates the objections his army might have against warring with the French and addresses them in his address to his crestfallen army in lieu of ignoring them. This gives weight to his motivational speech and spurs his army into action. In a way he anticipates the modern day managerial persuasion model as proposed by the contemporary author, Mary Munter. Again these techniques of persuasive communication are coming from an American expert (the US belongs to Anglo cluster like England according to GLOBE study, see Table 3) which Shakespeare seems to follow.
But though Shakespeare seems to endorse language as the prime carrier of messages as is the case with low-context cultures and hence, crafts beautiful orations that still inspire leaders to win the hearts of their followers by their verbal dexterity, yet he also seems to defy other high-context cultures like that of Arabs. The Arabs accentuate verbal eloquence in their messages to such an extent that they may end up using 100 words where the English would use just 10 (Beamer and Varner 2011). In the Middle East we find that often words are employed for their sonorous beauty rather than for promoting argument. But if one analyzes the oration of Mark Antony, which is still one of the most oft-quoted passages of persuasive communication, one concludes that though Shakespeare employs repetition, rhythm, metaphors and rhetorical devices typical of Arabic communication, here each and every word adds to the weight of the argument. Not a single word is employed only for its auditory value. Mark Antony begins with the words, ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears,’ (Act III, Scene 2, Line 34), inviting his hostile audience to listen, and then he adroitly assures them; ‘I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.’ Thus, he begins with identifying the common ground of agreement before getting into argument that is counter to his audience’s biases. Here also Shakespeare seems to anticipate Mary Munter’s communication model of persuasion. And then he strategically shifts his message:
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious.
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.
Here Antony iterates Brutus’ stance by stating that Caesar had to be assassinated because he was guilty of monstrous ambition. He cleverly uses ‘if’ to initiate doubt about Caesar’s mammoth motive of might, but accepts the psychological reading of Caesar’s mind by Brutus regarding his puissant ambition for power by declaring with emphatic usage of irony, ‘For Brutus is an honourable man…’ and then he keeps on repeating ‘Brutus is an honourable man,’ as a refrain but not to impart mellifluous lilt to the passage but to build the force of argument:
He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff….
…Was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,
And sure he is an honourable man.
Thus, Shakespeare uses the device of repetition in Antony’s persuasive speech, but unlike the communicators in the high-context Arabic culture who use repetition for verbal melody, here it is used economically at strategic turning points in the speech to add that vital ironical sting to the message that will reconfigure Mark Antony’s audience’s mental make-up completely.
One more feature noteworthy in this context is that Antony predominantly uses logos more than he uses pathos for persuading his audience. The Aristotelian principles of ethos, logos and pathos as tools of persuasion are well-known. Logos stands for logic, pathos stands for emotion and Ethos stands for credibility. Elizabeth A. Tuleja states in her book Intercultural Communication for Business (Tuleja 2008), ‘Western cultures tend to rely on strong arguments … emotional appeals are common in cultures that are expressive with gestures and feelings, such as Middle Eastern, Latin American, and African….’ Affirming this notion, we find that Mark Antony uses strong logic (logos) to convince the crowd rather than emphasizing emotion (pathos). Caesar is dead and in such a situation one may be tempted to use emotion as the primary tool of persuasion as is the case with the aforementioned cultures and some of the Asian cultures like India. But instead of relying more on pathos to stir his listeners he uses strong arguments to prove that Caesar was not ambitious and hence, his assassination is a heinous crime:
But here’s a parchment with the seal of Caesar;
I found it in his closet; ‘tis his will…..
… he hath left you all his walks,
His private arbours, and new-planted orchards,
On this side Tiber; he hath left them you,
And to your heirs for ever: common pleasures,
To walk abroad and recreate yourselves.
Here was a Caesar! When comes such another?
Antony reminds his listeners that Caesar had declined the offer of crown, hence cannot be branded as ambitious. Thus, by using cogent, clear and well-structured argument he wins over Brutus—a good model of low-context argumentation style.
Another instance of low-context communication is Portia’s argument that Shylock should follow the contract verbatim and forfeit his pound of flesh without dropping a single drop of blood and cut just a pound of flesh exactly, nothing less, nothing more. Intercultural communication experts state that in low-context cultures contracts are sacrosanct—what is decided in the contract cannot be altered once it is signed and is followed verbatim. Written contracts are very important in low-context cultures and are sealed once they are signed. The parties are then expected to follow them stringently. While high-context cultures do not deem written contracts as the full and final documents of agreement that has to be followed literally as communicated. For them these contracts can be altered, and interpreted again according to change is the circumstances. Hence, for them contracts are dynamic and their interpretation cannot be frozen. But Portia’s argument is based on following the literal meaning of the contract—a pound of flesh and nothing more; the weight has to be meticulously followed and that too without any blood oozing out. This can serve as a valid argument only in low-context cultures where people practise linear thinking and causal relationship of ideas and look at contracts literally. In high-context cultures where people believe in reading between lines and follow circular reasoning such an argument will not get advocacy:
Portia: Tarry a little; there is something else.
This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood;
The words expressly are ‘a pound of flesh:’
Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh;
But, in the cutting it, if thou dost shed
One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods
Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate
Unto the state of Venice
Portia: Therefore prepare thee to cut off the flesh.
Shed thou no blood, nor cut thou less nor more
But just a pound of flesh: if thou cut’st more
Or less than a just pound, be it but so much
As makes it light or heavy in the substance,
Or the division of the twentieth part
Of one poor scruple, nay, if the scale do turn
But in the estimation of a hair,
Thou diest and all thy goods are confiscate.
There are some other aspects of communication in which Shakespeare again follows his indigenous culture.
In most of the organizations, leaders avoid the receipt of negative feedback. The Queen of Nile’s tragic end probably can be ascribed to this tendency of avoiding negative communication. She had administered the following injunction to her staff in Antony and Cleopatra:
Though it be honest, it is never good
To bring bad news; give a gracious message
An host of tongues, but let ill tidings tell
Themselves when they be felt.
Thus, Shakespeare seems to exhort that though the news may be negative, it should be communicated directly without any ambiguity generated through indirect reporting for granting a cosmetic euphemism to the unpleasant content of the message.
Those who have worked in contemporary England will find their managers preferring direct communication style even if the message concerned involves the delivery of negative news. They seem to be following their master playwright.
Conclusions
Thus, we conclude that the approach of Shakespeare towards leadership and communication is predominately Anglican. The leadership models as presented by the GLOBE study, which are followed by Confucian Asia (leaders are protective of their own leadership, not very participative; take independent decisions), Southeast Asia including India (independent decisions-makers, paternalistic), the Middle East (familial, de-emphasis of charismatic/value-based leadership) are fairly different.
Yet there are certain universal positive and negative leader attributes brought out by GLOBE which makes Shakespeare relevant to all cultures.
Some of the GLOBE universal positive leader attributes are confidence builder, just, motivational, communicative and intelligent which Henry V personifies.
Some of the GLOBE universal negative leader traits are loner, asocial, ruthless, dictatorial, ego-centric which correspond to the fatal flaws that Shakespeare depicts in his Hamlet, Macbeth, Richard III, King Lear to name a few that precipitate their tragic cataclysm.
Thus, we can say that though Shakespeare predominately remains Anglican in his leadership, communication and management offerings, yet his lessons of managerial import can guide any corporate leader in any part of the world if they are tailored to fit a given country’s cultural heritage. His Henry V is a charismatic leader, the GLOBE study notes that charismatic/value-based leadership is appreciated in most clusters. It is the top ranking leadership trait in the Anglo, Nordic Europe, Latin Europe and Latin American clusters. It ranks second or third in Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Southern Asia and Germanic Europe. However, it is given a low rank (4th) in Confucian Asia and in the Middle East (Northouse 2006).
Although the present paper posits that Shakespeare through his writings in a way endorses and replicates the Anglo-Saxon cultural canons, yet in no way the author would like to disseminate the message of imaging Shakespeare as an exclusive cultural human science confined to the academic purpose of the West. Shakespeare has been adopted, adapted and presented in diverse cultural avatars so that the audience of a particular ethnicity can relate to him. Even in India, Shakespeare has inspired hosts of writers, thinkers and cinema makers who have tried to present Shakespeare to Indian audiences in Indianized versions. The point of exposition here is that the Shakespearean texts for management should be transculturated and not transplanted with their Anglican context in order to be meaningful in different cultural entities. Thus, intercultural reading of Shakespeare has to be practised with systemic mutations in order to offer an effective transnational discourse to management practitioners keeping in view the plurality of diverse socio-cultural business contexts. This need for cultural appropriation of Shakespeare has been felt in the realm of art which has led to production of works like Shakespeare in Canada: ‘a world elsewhere?’ (2002), India’s Shakespeare: Translation, Interpretation and Performance (2005), O Brave New World: Two Centuries of Shakespeare on the Australian Stage (2001). Websites like
The idea that Shakespeare is a global author has taken many forms since the building of the Globe playhouse. Our work honours the fact and demonstrates the diversity of the world-wide reception and production of Shakespeare’s plays in ways that we hope will nourish the remarkable array of new forms of cultural exchange that the digital age has made possible (Peter S. Donaldson, Director & Editor-in-Chief, Global Shakespeares, Retrieved June 16, 2013, from
The website offers archives of stage productions, interviews and speeches of Shakespearean scholars from around the globe presenting the variegated performative meanings that applications of indigenized cultural affiliations to Shakespearean drama acquire begetting new localized avatars of global Shakespeare—for example Shakespeare’s Hamlet has donned different transnational guises like Sobhi Hamlet (Arabic), Hazarika Hamlet (Assamese—Indian), Correa Hamlet (Brazilian Portuguese), Kurita Hamlet (Japanese), Yohangza Hamlet (Korean), Hamlet Unplugged (Mandarin) and Lyth Hamlet (Swedish). Such revisionist interpretations have to be practised for reclaiming the bard’s legacy for management classrooms as well.
Limitations of the Research
Since this work is based on excavation of a cultural pedigree from literary texts of an artist, it is saddled with certain limitations. Culture is not a repertoire of scientific signifiers of the anthropological psychoanalysis of the denizens of a particular ethnicity that percolates temporally without undergoing any mutation. Culture is nimble and travels though ages with incremental changes that reconfigures its character. Hence, one cannot harp on an ethnocentric approach in comprehending people hailing from diverse geo-cultural sites of the world without making the necessary reservations from time to time.
Applying the same principle of temporal change to the issue of leadership and management in cultural context, the author would like to assert that the paper in no way promotes rigid stereotypic generalizations about disparate leadership profiles with national traits as there are always some business leaders who would defy and transcend the typical cultural identities ascribed to them. For example, Narayan Murthy, founder of the Indian IT giant Infosys, once said:
Being transaction-oriented in every decision avoids groupism. An emphasis on meritocracy and data-orientation enhances the confidence of employees in the fairness of the corporation. We believe in the adage, in God we trust, everybody else brings data to the table (Northouse 2006).
This communiqué represents a global performance approach rather than a particularistic approach assigned traditionally to Indian business leaders. But one still can conclude that forces of past continue to persist in the present mantled in their modern versions so that one cannot say that one is completely free from the vestiges of past. A.K. Ramanujan in his essay, Is There an Indian Way of Thinking? commenting on the superficial modern Indian transition from its original context-sensitive (high context) character to the Western mode of context-free (low context) culture writes, ‘…Indian borrowings of Western cultural items have been converted and realigned to fit pre-existing context-sensitive needs … the “modern,” the context-free, becomes one more context…’ (Ramanujan 1989). Thus, he asserts that despite the advent of a so-called Occidental modernization India remains a high-context, hierarchical culture as compared to the Anglophone low-context and egalitarian cultures.
Future Directions for Research
Classics like Shakespearean verses have universal appeal, but when one thinks of employing literature for managerial training, it will be better if one identifies literary models from one’s own native culture to teach issues like leadership and persuasive communication. Future research work can be done in finding how different cultures can find efficacious model texts to train managers to handle motivation, persuasion and other leadership issues for their own cultural settings. It is easier for people to understand and extract useful lessons from the authors of their own cultures and identify themselves with the characters they have grown up listening tales of.
Every culture has its own literary tradition and can look for successful models of persuasive leadership communication in the books venerated since generations. For example, Bhagwad Gita can serve as a literary exemplar for Indians. For Indian audience it will be easier to relate to Bhagwad Gita in order to comprehend the craft of motivating and leading with persuasive communication one’s followers who are baffled with debilitating dilemmas in challenging times as compared to books imported from foreign origin. In India there is an issue of family business leadership as well. In most of these family business houses the leadership succession is based on lineage rather than competence. But here an objective evaluation of competence and not emotionally engaged family control is required for successful execution of business operations. To deal with these knotty issues of family control and conflict a text like Bhagwad Gita can act as a guide which propagates a dispassionate discharge of duties with a detached perspective without getting embroiled in the tangles of blood relationships. The author of this paper is doing her future research work on Gita as a manual for leadership and persuasive communication for Indian managers. In this regard one can hark back to what A.K. Ramanujan wrote in his work, Is there an Indian Way of Thinking? addressing the importance of contextualizing the interpretations one can derive from certain Western texts, which can be applied to the reading of Shakespearean drama as well, ‘In modern thought, William James with his ‘sub-universes,’ or Alfred Schutz with his ‘finite provinces of reality’ and ‘relevance’ as central concepts in any understanding, should be re-read in the light of what I have said about context-sensitive and context-free modes’ (Ramanujan 1989).
Recently, Times of India featured one newspaper tribute to Dr K. Anji Reddy, founder-chairman, Reddy Laboratories, who passed away after a successful temporal stint in business reading, ‘Whatever action a great man performs, common men follow. Whatever standards he sets by exemplary acts, all the world pursues.’ This is the English translation of a shloka (verse) quoted from Bhagwad Gita (the original lines were also printed for the Sanskrit literate readers). This shows how every culture has its own opulent literary, mythological past that inspires generations to foster efficacious leadership models. Such texts of perennial interest are often quoted in business and in other contexts as their lessons are not confined to transcendental evangelists or to aesthetic connoisseurs of literature. These classical works can impart lessons that enable, ennoble and enlighten people to function in different walks of life. As Edward W. Said has put it:
Too often literature and culture are presumed to be politically, even historically innocent; it has regularly seemed otherwise to me, and certainly my study of Orientalism has convinced me (and I hope will convince my literary colleagues) that society and literary culture can only be understood and studied together.
Thus, Shakespeare can be understood in the context of his own culture and in order to globalize Shakespeare one needs to process his texts for art, entertainment as well as management through the filters of different cultural contexts.