While “Game of Thrones” has its share of dragons, swordfights
and sorcery, it’s the political maneuvering and shifting power dynamics that
anchor much of the HBO television series and “A
Song of Ice and Fire,” the George R.R. Martin series upon which the show is based.
From Jon Snow’s reluctant rise to
become the lord commander of the Night’s Watch to Littlefinger’s backdoor
machinations, characters take different approaches to leadership—with varying
degrees of success.
Speakeasy talked with three experts
in management and business—all familiar with the show—to see what can be
learned from these styles when applied to a corporate environment: Aimee Cohen, an
author and speaker who has been a career expert for more than 20 years; Waverly Deutsch,
clinical professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago Booth
School of Business; and Erich
Dierdorff, professor of management at DePaul University’s Driehaus
College of Business.
“What leadership is in its essence,
at its core, is influencing others towards some goal, or to influence someone
to do something,” said Dierdorff. In that sense, almost all the main characters
in “Thrones” exhibit some form of leadership, he said, except for Jaime
Lannister.
“Jaime
doesn’t want to be a leader, he wants to be an individual contributor,” said
Deutsch. This conflicts with his father Tywin’s succession plan for House
Lannister. “Succession-planning in business is so difficult,” she added. “We’re in a
period right now where corporations are being led by baby boomers who are
heading up towards retirement age, and they have Gen Xers and millennials
behind them.” The Gen Xers came through during downturns in the —from the
bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2000 to the crash in 2008—where things like
leadership training got cut at a lot of companies.Responda
