King Lear’s Lessons for Grown-Ups

An excerpt from Chad’s book “Thinking Aloud: Reflections on Ethical Leadership”. We hope you enjoy the essay – and perhaps introduce the questions below as a way to start conversations with your teammates. – ELA Team

Get a free PDF version of Chad’s Book, “Thinking Aloud” now at https://ethinact.com/thinking-aloud/.

King Lear’s Lessons for Grown-Ups

When our Ethical Leadership Working Group decided to read and watch King Lear, my mind went back more than 20 years, to the frustrated words of a particularly memorable English professor:  “Mr. Weinstein, I am stunned – not merely disappointed, but stunned – by your prosaic observations and flat-footed arguments.  I hope you show more promise as a philosopher than as a literary critic.”  (I share his hope.)  Despite that dark assessment, I now seek to apply King Lear to the enterprise of leadership in general, and adulthood in particular. I won’t rehash the plot here, when you can find professional summaries all over the Internet.  Maybe you remember the story without the crib notes.  Suffice it to say that Lear is a story of a father with three daughters, and the consequences of two daughters’ ill will and his own bad choices.  It is a study in human frailty.

Lear’s leadership lessons are not as readily accessible as other texts we’ve tackled in discussion groups.  Shakespeare’s language is lush and gorgeous, but it can inhibit conceptual understanding among us, the Tweeting Masses.  The plot seems a mess, with blinded and semi-naked men stumbling around the countryside, interspersed with acts of violence and sexual impropriety.  Nearly without exception, the characters are distinguished primarily by their weaknesses and flaws.  Even the names are confusing.

Not surprisingly, the reader is rewarded for her efforts.  I believe that in Lear, we can find lessons in adulthood.  Shakespeare presents us with a study in human frailty.  We can see our vices, beginning with Lear’s own vain and faulty test of his daughters’ love for him.  That shortcoming is entirely overshadowed by the malicious motives and vile actions of his elder daughters and their respective consorts.  It’s rough out there, and there are nasty people everywhere.  Children require simple, unambiguous, happy endings.  Adults can tolerate ambiguity, complexity, and the reality that bad things do happen, and bad people sometimes win.

A starker lesson in adulthood is not about the external world, but about the limits on our ability to change it.  Who among us has not, at times, felt put upon by circumstances?  We face challenges personal, professional, political and – especially of late – macroeconomic.  Adolescents feel bulletproof.  When we see that we are mortal, what can we do?  Do we fold?  Do our very mental faculties desert us?  Our character is not defined by what we confront, but by how we confront it and how we respond.

Adults are realistic.  A few people hearing my public addresses have accused me of painting too rosy a picture, noting that all of my cited examples of ethical conduct result in organizational success.  My firm’s underlying message that the good guys can win, they have argued, obscures the reality that sometimes tough decisions need to be made and the results don’t always favor the virtuous.  I hope I haven’t been that lopsided, but I accept the observation and have integrated more cautionary language into my speeches.  Virtue doesn’t always pay, but through analytical rigor, creativity, and courage, ethical leaders can often win.  Often, but not always.   It’s like the old joke about bear hunting with nothing but a knife: “Sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes the bear gets you.”  In King Lear, the metaphorical bear seems to get everyone.

So, as morally committed adults, we are faced with the challenge of discerning and doing the right things, again and again, without the adolescent belief in our own invincibility or the juvenile certainty that the good guys always win.  We can rise to that challenge by taking care of ourselves and one another, acting in ways that reflect a deep concern for the well-being of others.  We can support one another in that pursuit, celebrating successes, recovering from failures, and learning from all of it.  The world may not be as simple as children imagine, but it is a rich and wonderful place in which we, as adults, can thrive.

Conversation Starters:

Part of being an adult is making hard choices, and living with the consequences.

• When have you had to live with the consequences of a bad choice?
• Do you long for childhood, cherish adulthood, or feel something else altogether? Why?
• What is the most important lesson you have learned that focuses on an aspect of adulthood?

At Ethical Leaders in Action we believe that most, if not all people, can develop themselves to play leadership roles in many different spheres both large and small. The foundation of this development process is a short but powerful list of virtues which can be developed and improved through conscious effort. For more information feel free to take the Virtues of Ethical Leadership Self Inventory (VELSI) which breaks these virtues down into features that can be individually developed. The results of the VELSI come with a quick reference guide to help you understand how the virtues and their individual features fit together. https://ethinact.com/velsi/

See a list of other posts in this series at Blog Post Series

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