‘Power Plays – Shakespeare and Leadership’ (language: English)

Business Strategy Series 13:2, 2012, pp.63-69

‘There’s no business without show business’, goes the famous saying. And show business started with theatre. If you look at boardroom battles and takeovers – at the intrigues, the power plays, the triumphs and tragedies of executives – they are sometimes more reminiscent of theatre than of business. They are sometimes a comedy, often a tragedy, and occasionally pure improvisation. Similarly, the financial crisis appeared to be more a product of an author’s wild fantasy than of the real world. Once again, it brought the drama of theatre to the global financial stage: the fall of Bear Stearns and the demise of Lehman Brothers; the nations that almost followed the banks in going bust; and the dodgy debt that was fought with even more dodgy debt, nosediving rapidly towards a Shakespearean Armageddon.

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