Labor / Employment, On The Job

Leadership Lessons From Westeros (Part I)

Cersei Lannister is also an objectively terrible person. Does your boss use her leadership style?

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(Photo via Game of Thrones/HBO)

Workplace culture is different everywhere you work. Some places are great: the people are nice, the work is interesting, the pay is great. People love coming to work (or at least don’t dread it). But some places are bad: the people are awful, the work is tedious, the wages are low. People absolutely hate their jobs and turnover is high.

What’s behind these disparities in workplace culture? Most often it’s the organization’s leadership. The good and bad can usually be traced to the leaders’ management style (or lack thereof). Good leaders bring out the best in those around and below them, while bad leaders bring out the worst and create toxic environments.

In this series, I’m going to discuss some good and bad leaders and leadership qualities that we see in our daily lives using some of our favorite characters from Game of Thrones as exemplars. In this first installment, I’m going to talk about that woman we all love to hate, Cersei Lannister, and the leadership style she represents.

Cersei Lannister – Success At All Costs

Cersei is very focused. She’ll do anything to further her own and House Lannister’s place in the world and crush their rivals. There used to be a serious glass ceiling for women in patriarchal Westeros. No woman had ever sat the Iron Throne and all of the major houses were headed by men. She changed all of that by taking over as head of her house after her father’s death and then taking the throne after her youngest son died.

No one needs to tell Cersei to lean in.

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But let’s be real: Cersei Lannister is also an objectively terrible person. She’s vengeful in the extreme, completely untrustworthy, morally bankrupt, and determined to achieve and consolidate power no matter the cost.

I mean look at House Lannister’s longtime rival House Tyrell. House Tyrell had greater resources than House Lannister and was led by some really powerful folks: (former) Queen Margaery (married to Cersei’s son), Mace Tyrell (super rich old dude who’s allied with all the right peeps), Olenna Tyrell (wise and charismatic veteran of court politics), and Lorace Tyrell (one of the best knights around). And what happened to the good folks of House Tyrell when they crossed Cersei?

She got Margaery, Mace, and Lorace all in the same church together and then she blew them all up inside of said church. Then she: (1) had her brother go raid their family home (Highgarden); (2) used the gold she took from Highgarden to pay off House Lannister’s debt to the Iron Bank; and (3) had her brother kill the only remaining Tyrell, Lady Olenna. Cersei ground House Tyrell into non-existence.

At the same time, she declared herself the very first Queen of the Seven Kingdoms and quickly began plotting how to conquer her enemies to the north with whom she’d only recently promised a truce. And so, despite all of the side eye from everyone in Westeros and beyond, she single-handedly shattered the glass ceiling in Westeros by crushing her rivals and becoming its very first queen.

There are Cerseis in corporate America and in law firms. These are the leaders who are super smart, driven, and focused on profits and their own personal success above all else.

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They care nothing for their employees; they’re simply a means to an end. They generally aren’t interested in building lasting organizations that will stand the test of time. They don’t shy away from corporate warfare and care nothing for the casualties. They’re focused on grinding out every ounce of profit from the organization which they’ll eventually discard before moving on to the next. They’re only loyal to themselves.

If you work for leaders like this, it’s best to either move on or adopt the same shark-like attitude. Otherwise you’re probably going to have a bad time. Leaders like Cersei will never heed a word anyone says about the terrible workplace culture and they’re not going to change. Ever. It’s not in their DNA. They’ll just grind everyone down, reap the spoils, and move on to their next conquest. Just like Cersei Lannister.

Next time we’ll talk about two other leadership styles: people pleasers and delegators. Can you guess who I’ll use as examples for these two styles?

evan-gibbsEvan Gibbs is an attorney at Troutman Sanders, where he primarily litigates employment cases and handles traditional labor matters. Connect with him on LinkedIn here, or e-mail him here. (The views expressed in this column are his own.)

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