Game of Thrones<\/em> is how many parallels you can spot with \u2018real life\u2019 leadership, both present and past,\u201d says Kjaerstad. \u201cDaenerys Targeryen, for example, has many characteristics of England\u2019s Queen Elizabeth the First, surrounding herself with strong helpers and advisors to build a team that would accomplish much more than she could have on her own. Theresa May is worryingly like Robb Stark, starting off very promising but then falling prey to increasingly bad choices. Let\u2019s just hope she doesn\u2019t decide to attend any weddings in the near future.<\/p>\nRest assured Trond, the only thing on Theresa\u2019s mind is divorce\u2026 but that may turn out to be another massacre.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe eternal survivor, Jon Snow, has elements of a Macron or an early Obama about him,\u201d he says. \u201cHe is the underdog with the promise of turning things around and making a real impact. And, if you want to find a parallel for the leader that seems to still have everyone puzzled, namely Donald Trump, then for me it would be Euron Greyjoy \u2013 not the most empathetic character in the story but nevertheless direct, tough and usually successful.\u201d<\/p>\n
I guess the two also share a fondness for locker room talk.<\/p>\n
But, given Kjaerstad\u2019s professional focus on what we, the followers, seek out in our leaders, and our apparent clarity on what \u2018good\u2019 leadership looks like, who presents the best model in a\u00a0Game of Thrones <\/em>scenario so chaotic and tangled that it makes the business world look like an afternoon at Disneyland?<\/p>\n\u201cIf you accept the approach to leadership that most academics advocate these days \u2013 co-operative, non- consensual, egocentric \u2013 then it would have to be Tyrion Lannister,\u201d he says. \u201cAlthough seemingly not leadership material at all when we first meet him \u2013 drunken, dissipated and cowardly \u2013 he just gets better and better as the narrative progresses, learning and developing from every crisis that he finds himself plunged into.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kjaerstad continues, \u201cBy the latest series he\u2019s ticking so many of the right boxes, displaying both realism and pragmatism, bringing people together despite their\u00a0very\u00a0<\/em>deep-rooted differences and providing well-reasoned and perceptive advice accompanied by some well-needed humor. The only problem is that he very likely wouldn\u2019t want the top job because he\u2019s perceptive enough to see that it\u2019s not the glittering prize it promises to be!\u201d<\/p>\nSo, does\u00a0Game of Thrones<\/em>\u00a0offer an MBA shortcut? Kjaerstad\u2019s main point isn\u2019t simply to discern to effective management by taking copious notes while binge-watching all 67 episodes that the series has aired so far.<\/p>\n\u201cI think that anyone who is serious about management and leadership needs to embrace the fact that because it\u2019s such a complex subject you can never stop learning,\u201d Kjaerstad says. \u201cAnd you don\u2019t just learn from academic text books or the how-to guides that fill up airport bookshop shelves, you learn from everything that goes on around you. Consequently, I\u2019d really urge any serious manager not to lock themselves into their own subject, but to read as widely as possible, to watch good films and TV shows, to travel, to talk, to exchange ideas, in short to face outwards and always keep an open mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause you never know when or where you are going to come across that great idea which is going to make you even better than you are today.\u201d<\/p>\n
A version of this article was originally published in Forbes on November 12, 2017. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Teaching leadership to the next generation of executives takes more than academic theory. So MBA programs around the globe have been tripping over themselves of late to find creative ways…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":160,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1831,775,243],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mba","category-fortuna-admissions","category-admission-consultants","category-blog","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/160"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40098\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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