Ariane Balizet, Texas Christian University - How Studying Shakespeare Makes Better Leaders

On Texas Christian University Week: Making better leaders going forward is key; so how do we do so? Ariane Balizet, Assistant Provost for Faculty Success and Professor of English, reads some classic texts to find out. Faculty Bio:Ariane M. Balizet is the inaugural Assistant Provost for Faculty Success and Professor of English at Texas Christian University, where she created a nationally-recognized New Faculty Mentoring Program in the AddRan College of Liberal Arts. In addition to the TCU Deans’ Award for Teaching, she has received ten recognitions for research, service, and graduate and undergraduate teaching since joining the faculty in 2008.Ariane Balizet specializes in the literature of Renaissance England and its afterlives in popular culture and pedagogy. She is currently researching a book on games and colonial competition in early modern England, Spain, and the Caribbean. She is the author of Shakespeare and Girls’ Studies (2019), Blood and Home in Early Modern Drama: Domestic Identity on the Renaissance Stage (2014), and many essays on Renaissance emotions, histories and theories of girlhood, and performance in early modern England and Spain. Most recently, she co-edited Strategic Shakespeare: Transformative Leadership for the Future of Higher Education (2025), with Marcela Kostihová and Natalie K. Eschenbaum..Transcript:Yes, studying Shakespeare can make you a better leader. But as a Shakespeare professor, I can promise that you won’t find many examples of good leadership in Shakespeare’s works. If anything, Shakespeare’s plays delight in bad leadership: the bloodthirsty tyrant Macbeth; the foolish megalomaniac Lear; or the spoiled, narcissistic Richard II. While Marcela Kostihová, Natalie Eschenbaum, and I don’t look to Shakespeare for leadership role models, we have found that leaders can strengthen their influence and effectiveness in modern contexts through the core liberal arts skills used in studying plays about tyrants, despots, and even teenage lovers, whose passions and mistakes reveal timeless truths about power, responsibility, and the human desire for connection and meaning.After a quarter-century teaching Shakespeare’s plays and poetry to young people, we’ve learned that the skills required to make sense of Romeo and Juliet are the very skills successful leaders use in times of crisis or change. These include a sophisticated grasp of historical context, to recognize the difference between novelty and true innovation, the ability to understand conflicting viewpoints and data sets, to make critical decisions when there is no “right” answer, and an appreciation for the value of a good story, to communicate clearly when change is necessary to advance a shared mission and sustain trust.Shakespeare is certainly not, as a murderous Macbeth would say, the “be-all and end-all” of good leadership. But studying Shakespeare shows us that learning history, philosophy, religion, languages, and literature — that is, learning from the Humanities — equips us to lead with empathy, courage, and confidence. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org