Book review: Inspirational Leadership - Henry V and the Muse of Fire

Originally published in GP magazine .

Written for GP magazine around 2007. This is the version I submitted - the published article may have been edited.

Book: Inspirational Leadership: Henry V and the Muse of Fire by Richard Olivier

Last year I was lucky enough to attend a leadership course run by a company called Olivier Mythodrama titled “Henry V and Inspirational Leadership”. I was never a great fan of Shakespeare, having suffered through two years of Macbeth for O level. I had seen a version of Henry V on video and was really puzzled as to how we could do this for a whole day.

The speaker started the day by running through the whole play, discussing the main plot and themes. In a little over an hour I had a much deeper understanding than ever before. The play follows Henry V from his beginnings through the ups and downs to the night before Agincourt, where defeat looks certain, and then the amazing victory.

Each of the sections of the play has relevance to anyone aspiring to lead a team or stepping up into a senior position. On the day we only had time to go through a couple of sections in detail. There was a little bit of running around the room and physical activities in the afternoon, and it unsurprisingly showed one of our consultant surgeon colleagues to be rabidly competitive, but was good fun.

Needless to say you can buy a book, and having purchased it I would recommend it to everyone, whether they had been on the course or not. The book covers the whole play and has more information on the theory. For example, in Act 2 Henry has to deal with traitors, and the book discusses the difference between critics and traitors, splitting them into four types: Naysayers, Overt Critics, Covert Critics and True Traitors. Without spoiling the book, a covert critic is secretly trying to stop the project, largely because they don’t like change, but a traitor is trying to get rid of you. Neither will be criticising you to your face, unlike Naysayers and Overt Critics.

It also covers key leadership types: the Good King, the Great Mother, the Medicine Woman and the Warrior. Most leaders are experts in one or two of these roles and learning to develop all four types can help improve you.

At £12.99 the book is a fascinating read even if all you want to do is look at a Shakespeare play in a different way. I am now booked to see the play in Stratford-upon-Avon later in the year.