Personating leadership: Shakespeare's Henry V and performative negotiation

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This essay examines early modern notions of ideal and problematic leadership through the lens of Shakespeare's King Henry V. The piece argues that critical depictions of Henry as either charismatic or Machiavellian are reductive; Henry's success as a monarch derives from his ability to balance necessary authority with what I term 'performative negotiation.' In this model, Henry's publicly constructed persona serves as a means of 'negotiating' his sovereignty with his subjects, but also acts as an exemplum for the present and future mon- archs of England. Narratives of both leaders and leadership appear frequently in works of literature, from children's stories to the great works of the Western literary canon (Shushok and Moore 2010; Nelhs 2012). Since 'leadership is rooted in storytelling' (Nehls 2012, p. 64), it should be natural for leadership scholars to turn to literature for examples of and arguments about leadership. William Shakespeare's Henry V, based on the historical successes of the fifteenth-century English king, is deeply concerned with the complex nature of leadership. Particularly when considered in relation to its original context, Henry V indicates the complicated and often vexed relationship between Shakespeare's audience and their Elizabethan monarch. In 1599, the date of the play's inaugural per- formance, the presentation of monarchy on the public stage was an act of political speech, subject to critique from authority even as it was itself able to (cautiously) part- icipate in contemporary sociopolitical discussions of the nature - and appropriate limitations - of monarchy (Axton 1977). By examining Henry V as an allegorical repre- sentation of English monarchy, we are shown a picture of sovereignty that is simulta- neously idealized and fallible. This paradoxical interpretation of Shakespeare's most successful king is reflected by the fact that despite Henry's obvious position as a military and political leader, there is still some scholarly debate over whether his reputation as 'the mirror of all Christian kings' (II.0.6) 1 is the product of effective or manipulative leadership (Rabkin 1977; Pye 1990; Deats 2004). The crux of the contention is that Henry is a consum- mate performer who appears in multiple guises: a captain concerned about the well- being of his soldiers, an actor who assumes the guise of a commoner, and a king who threatens the city of Harfleur with atrocity, orders the execution of the French prisoners of war, and nevertheless still spurs his men to great victory at Agincourt. 1. All Henry V citations are from the 1995 edition shown in the reference list.