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Leadership in
Game of
Thrones
Brigitte Biehl
Leadership in Game of Thrones
Brigitte Biehl
Leadership in Game
of Thrones
Brigitte Biehl
Berlin, Germany
This book is a translation of the original German edition „Leadership in Game of

Thrones“ by Biehl, Brigitte, published by Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH in
2020. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine transla-
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terms of content, so that the book will read stylistically differently from a conventional
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ISBN 978-3-658-34116-9 ISBN 978-3-658-34117-6 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-34117-6
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the students of the B.A. Creative Industries Management for
discussing the topic Game of Thrones in a seminar series. Alexander Missal pointed
out the “strong silent type” from The Sopranos and made lucid comments about the
series. Norman Noczinski has lovingly tolerated my GoT fascination, among many
others things, and added analyses of the music and legal issues. I would like to
thank the editor Marcus S. Kleiner for encouraging me to pursue this project, and I
thank him and Marcus Stiglegger for inviting me to speak at the symposium “Pop-
ular Politics in Television Series” by SRH Berlin School of Popular Arts (formerly
SRH Hochschule der populären Künste) and DEKRA Hochschule für Medien Ber-
lin, which once again heightened my awarenss of the relevance of TV series and
popular culture. Ulrich Wünsch is to be thanked for literally opening the door to the
popular arts for me and for embodying a creative type of leader during his time as
founding rector of our university that cannot be found in this book.
v
Contents
1 Introduction: Popular Culture and Leadership �� 1

2 Authenticity (Eddard Stark)�� 15
3 Forms of Capital (Robb and Catelyn Stark, Petyr Baelish)�� 29
4 Phallus (Yara Greyjoy, Varys)�� 43
5 Women (Sansa Stark)�� 57
6 Loneliness (Cersei Lannister)�� 67
7 Charisma (Daenerys Targaryen)�� 77
8 Romance (Jon Snow) �� 91
9 Disability (Tyrion Lannister, Brandon Stark)��101
10 Conclusion: Leadership Is Relational��113
vii
List of Figures
Fig. 1.1 Power and its centers are constantly in motion, even in our world
today and on The Simpsons. (The Simpsons, 2012, S32E15, USA,
Fox Studios, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=ZcSSpw7t044)��6
Fig. 1.2 Ditch it now! Daenerys, Breaker of Chains, prefers to align her
followers via charisma and visions. (Game of Thrones (GoT),
S03E04, USA, 2013, HBO, YouTube) ��9
Fig. 1.3 Leaders look ahead and ignore windbags. At least, that’s
what Alliser Thorne says. (GoT, S04E09, USA, 2014, HBO,
YouTube)��10
Fig. 2.1 Doing the unpleasant jobs yourself. Lord Eddard Stark is tough, but
authentic. (GoT, S01E01, USA, 2011, HBO, YouTube)��18
Fig. 2.2 Language is a key leadership tool and is part of social interaction.
(“The Jon Snow Accent! Game of Thrones Accents Tutorial,” Learn
English with Papa Teach Me, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=0Eu2w5X6w0w)��21
Fig. 2.3 Excuse me? The throne is taken again, although it was agreed
otherwise? Ned Stark didn’t see that coming. (GoT, S01E07, USA,
2011, HBO, YouTube)��26
Fig. 3.1 One gives away his capital, while the other builds a fleet with a
self-designed coat of arms on the sail. Chaos is his ladder. (GoT,
Fig. 3.2 Ballet of the Guards. Cersei visualizes leadership as the organiza-
tion of people in space and time. (GoT, S02E01, USA, 2012, HBO,
YouTube)��34
ix
x List of Figures
Fig. 3.3 When watching is no longer fun. Memes with reactions to the
massacre at the Red Wedding. (https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ac/
c3/c3/acc3c3f76a1c2265fbefd4767c7dde45.jpg)��36
Fig. 3.4 Empowerment is not always well received by leaders. Mom is
grounded, tent detention. (GoT, S02E08, USA, 2011, HBO,
YouTube)��38
Fig. 3.5 Catelyn has “female courage” and the right touch: A loyalty oath
means social capital beyond one’s own death. (GoT, S02E05, USA,
Fig. 4.1 Dynamic battle speech, whopping credentials, perfect setting—and
still not convincing enough. Yara is lacking the penis. (GoT,
Fig. 4.2 Littlefinger vs. Varys. A battle of words, a chess game in the space.
(GoT, S01E05, USA, 2011, HBO, YouTube)��49
Fig. 4.3 Knowledge is power. One has the upper hand, then the other. (GoT,
Fig. 4.4 Who lasts the longest? Highly symbolic games for the guys. (GoT,
USA, S04E01, 2014, HBO, YouTube) ��53
Fig. 5.1 Dressed for success. Pastel colours are definitely out for Sansa
Stark. (GoT, USA, S08E04, 2019, HBO, YouTube)��60
Fig. 6.1 A silent scream. Cersei lonely on the throne, as head of the state
and the church. (GoT, S06E10, USA, 2014, HBO, YouTube) ��75
Fig. 7.1 On a distance from the others: Mother of Dragons, Breaker of
Chains, etc., etc. (GoT, USA, S07E03, 2017, HBO, YouTube) ��81
Fig. 7.2 Daenerys doesn’t feel naked, she has dragons on her shoulder and
everyone is looking down on the ground anyway. She’s the
power-over type. (GoT, S01E10, USA, 2011, HBO, YouTube)��85
Fig. 7.3 Daenerys, Mhysa, Breaker of Chains, and medieval rock star. The
masses love her. (GoT, S03E10, USA, 2013, HBO, YouTube)��87
Fig. 7.4 Power gives you wings—until the leader takes off. Daenerys before
her last big speech. (GoT, USA, S08E08, 2019, HBO, YouTube) ��88
Fig. 8.1 Being the boss again!? Jon Snow was never able to enjoy promo-
tions. (GoT, USA, S06E10, 2016, HBO, YouTube)��95
Fig. 8.2 Support makes him uncomfortable. While confident leaders stand
up, Jon would rather sneak under the table. (GoT, USA, S05E02,
List of Figures xi
Fig. 9.1 Dark Middle Ages reloaded: The Red Witch sets a girl with a
scarred face on fire. (GoT, USA, S05E09, 2014, HBO,
YouTube)��103
Fig. 9.2 That’s it: Tyrion, “guilty of being a dwarf,” accuses discriminatory
society. (GoT, USA, S04E06, 2014, HBO, YouTube)��104
Fig. 9.3 Survival of the Fittest: After 8 seasons of intrigue and killing, a
woman (Sansa) and a disabled man (Bran) split power over the
kingdoms, and one woman (Arya) emigrates. (GoT, USA, S08E06,
Introduction: Popular Culture
and Leadership 1
Abstract
Game of Thrones is not just about fantasy, but about people in uncertain times.
Popular culture is a performative practice that provides us with meaning and
enables understanding of interpersonal interaction and struggles for influence,
legitimacy and power. Central themes of the series are power, leaders and fol-
lowers—the core themes of leadership research that we encounter everywhere
today. Media products show us the complexity of leadership quite lively and in
a more illustrative way than textbooks with their often dry explanations.
Keywords
Popular culture • Leadership • Management research • Relationships •
Interaction
Game of Thrones is not just a fantasy story, but a story about people. The series can
be seen as a serious exploration of human nature in uncertain times. The HBO se-
ries, which positions itself as a complex quality TV series different from regular
public TV, has attracted immense global attention. In the ranking of the most fa-
mous TV series, Game of Thrones is near the top with 38 Emmys and 128 nomina-
tions between 2011 and 2019, behind Saturday Night Live (since 1975), ahead of
Frasier, The Simpsons, and many other great series of this decade like Breaking
Bad and Mad Man. The controversial interest is definitely high. In the early days,
for example, Laurie Penny (2012) in the New Statesman had called Game of
Thrones a “pre-cultural Disneyland with dragons”, full of misogyny, heterosexism,
cissexism and toxic masculinity. The abundance of blood, breasts and rape coupled
© Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 1

B. Biehl, Leadership in Game of Thrones,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-34117-6_1
2 1 Introduction: Popular Culture and Leadership
with violence and power struggles in the series by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss,
based on the A Song of Ice and Fire series of novels by George R. R. Martin, was a
shock to global audiences accustomed to strategically calculated and sanitized
power plays in House of Cards, or at least semi-controlled viciousness in media-
acknowledged and thus less alienating drug wars like Breaking Bad. The struggle
for power in Westeros is more physical and bloodier than in any contemporary
economic or political context, but just as deceitful in terms of transgressions, ma-
nipulations, and defeats.
Over the eight seasons, the analyses of Game of Thrones deepened and differen-
tiated, and the popular cultural phenomenon was milked in many ways. It has be-
come a popular object of media discussion about today, human history, and even
the refugee crisis in Syria (Kustritz, 2016). In the business sphere, online portals
such as Business Insider soon presented rankings of the “leadership skills” of the
series’ characters, and the Economist published a piece on the virulent topic of
women in leadership positions in light of the power shift in Westeros: “Women rule
Westeros. How strange” (Prospero, 2016).
In this book, I use this very issue of power, influence, or leadership as a starting
point for an analysis of Game of Thrones. I understand popular culture as a perfor-
mative practice (Kleiner & Wilke, 2013) that conveys meaning to people and en-
ables understanding, including of interpersonal interaction and struggles for au-
thority, power, and meaning that affect us all. In this way, I bring together research
on popular culture with management research, which may sound surprising at first,
but seems almost necessary if one thinks about the central power struggles and
their protagonists. Thus, I will first discuss further the choice of leadership as a
topic, and then also outline how even management studies, which may seem far
away and not open to culture, arts, and media can benefit from and also develop the
analysis and critique of TV series in a cultural context. Likewise, media and cul-
tural studies on TV series benefit from this interdisciplinary expansion into busi-
ness studies, although and precisely because the disciplines of management with
its paradigm of efficiency and cultural studies with its paradigm of efficacy
(McKenzie, 2001) have long been difficult to unite (Biehl-Missal, 2011).
The central themes of the series are power, leaders and followers. These are the
core themes of leadership research, and more importantly, themes that we encoun-
ter everywhere today. For example, critical management researchers Learmonth
and Morrell (2017) have noted the “ubiquity of leadership” in contemporary dis-
course. There is no universal definition of leadership, but current views see leader-
ship as a process that involves influencing others, occurs in the context of a group,
and propagates specific goals that are shared to a greater or lesser extent by both
leader and followers (Walenta, 2012, p. 496). Leadership is therefore not classical
1 Introduction: Popular Culture and Leadership 3
management with functions such as planning, organizing, leading and controlling,

but has to do with sense-making, motivation and influence.
The topic is hot. In world politics today, we also experience the rise and fall of
great politicians, by whom people initially feel inspired and soon disgusted.
Particularly in today’s business world people do not just want to receive instruc-
tions, they want to be motivated and inspired, they want to find meaning and to
self-actualize, they look for a purpose and for people who show them the direction.
But that alone is not enough. They constantly engage with these leaders and decide
whether to follow them at all and for how long. This is especially true in areas of
the creative industries and knowledge work (Biehl, 2020), service industries, and
many other situations in our dynamic world, and so the principles of leadership and
interaction that we see negotiated in TV series can be lessons for all our lives as
well.
The varied approaches of cooperation and competition that we see represented
on screen can be applied everywhere, at work, in everyday life, and even in private
life (Galinsky & Schweitzer, 2015). Critically, it has already been noted that the
discourses, techniques and imperatives of management are increasingly entering
our lifeworld, where even private lives are already ‘managed’ (Hancock & Tyler,
2004). No surprise then, that a wide audience beyond typical fantasy consumers are
tuning in to Game of Thrones, where these themes of power and influence are con-
stantly encountered and negotiated.
Or the other way around: the series is built on these themes. A wide variety of
management theories and practical experiences are processed, edited and commu-
nicated to media users by the mass media and specifically in TV series—with the
programme content reflecting the most contemporary, up-to-date management
theories (Towers, 2018, p. 251). Even if the fantasy drama was not created as a
leadership parable, these themes are virulent today and are evident in the media
product, which could be described in psychoanalytic vocabulary as a “social
dream”, a product of multi-voiced and creative collaboration, and thus a reflection
of our contemporary society.
The public audience learns about leadership not only through management
books, journal publications and trade magazines, advanced training courses or
from their own experiences in their daily working lives. Rather, people also learn
about topics through popular culture. For example, they learn from TV series
how good collaboration works (Towers, 2018), and can take away from Game of
Thrones how leadership and followership are negotiated interpersonally. Not
only does the series tell us about the subject matter, but it can help us see certain
aspects of leadership and human power struggles differently and more clearly.
There are emotions, interactions, people! TV audiences can learn many lessons
and academics as well can derive new insights for management research and also
advance interdisciplinary perspectives in film and television studies and media
and cultural studies.
Popular culture can be fiction and fantasy, entertainment and amusement, but is
always a source of knowledge about the world. The content is presented differently
from scholarly texts that delineate, parcel out, and dig deep into topics, producing
knowledge as compact and hard-to-digest packages. Studying TV series and cul-
ture puts us in a space between conscious analysis and the unconscious popular
dreams of our society. Game of Thrones, like other forms of popular culture, allows
us to develop new perspectives on our world and gain insights that transcend and
expand boundaries of academic disciplines. The point here is not to delineate
knowledge claims, to further divide and literally “discipline” knowledge. Rather,
popular series should be embraced and used as a mirror of our times to pursue new
perspectives that have asserted themselves in this cinematic expression. Thus, in
this book, I analyze Game of Thrones in an interdisciplinary way with the help of
leadership research in the field of management and organization studies.
Popular culture has the potential to broaden and extend knowledge production,
and various strands of scholarly research have already included the analysis of
popular culture. For example, scholars in the field of international relations regu-
larly consider popular culture and have also looked at Game of Thrones as a politi-
cal microcosm, for example, to discuss political authority in its gendered forms,
realpolitik, and political trends (Clapton & Shepherd, 2017). This consideration is
quite obvious, as political action in one context can be transferred quite easily to
another. Of course, the series’ literary references build a bridge to politics, for ex-
ample to the Wars of the Roses in medieval England, the Crusades, and the Hundred
Years’ War, about which author George R. R. Martin is frequently quizzed and with
which fans engage extensively, for example on their own websites (“History
Behind Game of Thrones”, 2019) or in educational videos distributed by TED-Ed
(Gendler, n.d.).
The rule of kings and dukes is a somewhat different form of management than
we see today in global financial capitalism. But even the ruling royal house of
Westeros is heavily indebted to the Iron Bank. Moreover, kingdoms represented the
first economic units and, with their castles as centers, the most managerially run
organizations with a division of labor. The heroes of the novel are not directly
comparable to contemporary leaders and their PowerPoint meetings and IT prob-
lems. But our human problems are not too far removed in principle from the secret
intrigues, moral dilemmas, and verbal conflicts in fictional literature. Even if the
surface looks different, the inside translates right into modern work life.
The fantasy world presents a range of protagonists who can be discussed as

leadership types with regard to contemporary leadership literature—which may
not seem as obvious at first glance as looking at medieval history and international
politics. However, the visual distance of Game of Thrones from the world of busi-
ness leaves more room to play out and break stereotypes. Watching an office series
like Mad Men, Ally McBeal, or Suits through the dispositive of “leadership” would
not allow this to the same extent. The theme of power is central to the series, which
also distances itself from popular fantasy worlds with fairy tale leanings and pri-
marily female audiences, and connects to serious TV drama not least through its
hard-nosed rejection of romantic endings (“happily ever after”). Also, Westeros is
just pseudo-medieval with dragons and zombies and ahistorical by stirring together
popular myths from different places, eras and times. So the series actually shows
little of the past, but all the more of our imagination—not of the past, but of our
contemporary life.
Game of Thrones reveals to us a harsh view of our world. In our democratic
society, the position of violence is different, so this represents a break for us.
However, there are parallels. Although we undeniably uphold cultural achieve-
ments and do not want to live in the violent and brutal medieval era, we experience
that morals and social contracts are often not really up to date with our times, and
often are ignored. Many examples of cruelty, exploitation and ethical scandals in-
volve the business world in particular. We are aware that “the darkness” is among
us or in the form of political threats on our doorstep (Marsden, 2018). Violence is
still part of life for many people in politically and economically unstable places, so
it has not remained in the Middle Ages. Things like intrigue, betrayal, and power
plays may not often be physically brutal for most of us, but they can be psycho-
logically and emotionally destructive.
The political situation often changes quickly, and this is especially evident in
Game of Thrones, where the carousel of rulers and power spins rapidly. The open-
ing credits already point this out when the camera glides over the three-dimensional
map of Westeros and Essos and the castles and buildings made of machine-like
parts, pausing until they have spiraled upwards, driven by an invisible dynamic.
The buildings shown change, depending on the locations of each season’s action,
and alternately include King’s Landing, Winterfell, Meereen, Braavos, Dragonstone,
Vaes Dothrak, Harrenhal, Swiftwater, and others. The clockwork-like, relentless
emergence points to the determination and inevitability with which centers of
power are constantly formed and manifest in an architectural form. Ironically, the
Simpsons episode “Exit through the Kwik-E-Mart” shows this aesthetic as an in-
tertextual quotation when the urban buildings, including the White House (Fig. 1.1),
appear and in the last image the wall to the North materializes as a giant couch.
Fig. 1.1 Power and its centers are constantly in motion, even in our world today and on The
Simpsons. (The Simpsons, 2012, S32E15, USA, Fox Studios, YouTube https://www.you-
tube.com/watch?v=ZcSSpw7t044)
Game of Thrones doesn’t just tell us fantasy stories, it tells us about people. The
series shows us human interaction in uncertain times. The protagonists struggle
with themselves, their choices, and with others. Although it is a fantasy spectacle
in a medieval setting, Game of Thrones is now also a leadership drama and a mirror
of our times: the series shows a range of leaders of different genders, physical con-
ditions and backgrounds, and leaders who certainly are contemporary and would
not have existed a few decades ago. Game of Thrones situates itself in the geopo-
litical changes between the Western world and surrounding countries. The story
begins with fixed cultural and racial stereotypes featuring the European white king,
the exotic warlord from the Orient, and the beautiful but mean queen. The narrative
arc of the series is the destruction of traditional territories and power relations, the
shattering of noble family lines, and the mass movement of people as in Daenerys’
transnational endeavor. In season five, half of the characters are migrants, political
refugees, and citizens displaced into the diaspora. The situation seems less segre-
gated and cosmopolitan, with a petite blonde with dragons going up against an il-
legitimate bastard from the North, advised by a eunuch and a man with dwarfism.
The powerful women in the series are undeniably modern. Daenerys, with her
power attributes—not guns, but dragons—and her superpowers, the tough and con-
fident Cersei Lannister, and Arya Stark, who went from young daughter to deadly
assassin, are figures of feminist empowerment, taking on roles that were otherwise
reserved for men. The men, too, are like out of today’s hipster and lifestyle series:
the King in the North, Jon Snow, doesn’t want to lead and deplores it, all the time;
the short-term king, Tommen Lannister, wants to be loved by Mum; and the advisor
to several kings, Tyrion, openly admits his many faults and weaknesses.
Such fantasy stories, as well as other stories after the late Middle Ages and be-
fore our technological times, can be used as inspiration in many fields. Management
research has already turned to classical literature, theatre and art (Sánchez, 2018),
as well as a wide variety of film and TV products (Carroll et al., 2015; Towers,
2018). The strength of these media products is that they offer insights into the (in-
ter)human complexity of leadership that business management textbooks with ane-
mic models and matrices and superficial case studies cannot. Managers and com-
panies have attracted spectacular negative attention in recent decades with ethical
and sex scandals (Morgan Stanley), poorly concealed environmental destruction
(Volkswagen), economic fraud (Deutsche Bank) and global bankruptcies (Lehman
Brothers). Thus, management research and education has turned to the world of
arts and popular culture to bring ethical discussions, reflection, and human inspira-
tion into the discipline (Adler, 2006; Biehl-Missal, 2011).
Models of fictional narrative can enrich concepts of leadership research. For
example, management researchers have read Shakespeare for leadership develop-
ment (Augustine & Adelman, 1999; Badaracco, 2006). Critical readers recognize
that Henry V, for example, is by no means a moral ideal but a sinister character and
master dissembler with different faces, the entire Henriad can be seen as a piece on
the pursuit and maintenance of power as a “matter of becoming a consummate ac-
tor” (Mangham, 2001, p. 302). The theatre play poses the question: Has the actor
already succumbed to the image of the invincible self? Unlike management litera-
ture with its widespread leader-centric, charismatic and heroic leadership models,
these protagonists do not appear as heroes but show their unheroic sides. Thus,
many main characters in popular culture, art, literature and theatre are shown as
incoherent, questionable characters. Such heroes are not the aesthetic proof of
mainstream leadership theories, but present us with masks of insecurity in order to
ignite skepticism and doubt towards generally accepted but not really viable con-
cepts of leadership and followership (Biehl-Missal, 2010).
The leaders in Game of Thrones are heroes of the kind you don’t find in text-
books, but in life and clearly and distinctly in popular culture: They are far from
perfect, under tremendous pressure, and want to challenge themselves and others
to achieve their goals. This is consistent with our complex world today, where
failed leaders, although they do not literally get executed, must make decisions
with great uncertainty, uneasy feelings, and uncertain outcomes. The prominent
leaders in Game of Thrones do this on an ongoing basis. Sometimes this goes well,
and sometimes they fail spectacularly! Those who engage with the narrative can
see great strengths and spectacular weaknesses played out openly for once. Those
who empathize while watching can not only rationally comprehend mechanisms of
leadership and followership, but also become aware of them with their senses and
develop the sensual perception of human interaction as a kind of aesthetic compe-
tence. Last but not least, leadership unfolds not only in the mind, but also in the
hearts of people.
Game of Thrones in particular in the medium of film show the abysses and also
the ugly sides of power, with personalizing close-ups, well-illuminated self-
destruction and detailed confrontations of leadership archetypes and followers that
always are in doubt sooner or later. The political message to the audience is that it
is necessary to move away from the consistently ideological perspective of the
central, usually male, leader. Adopting a more nuanced view, we understand that
people do not only passively follow one leader, but people are actively questioning
and negotiating their interaction and social order. This insight opens the view for
one’s own responsibility and for possible change.
Game of Thrones, I argue, reflects a view on leadership that can also be seen in
contemporary academic leadership research: leaders themselves have been studied
long and extensively, but followers have received much less attention. In fact, it has
also taken many decades of research to take seriously the idea that there is no lead-
ership without supporters or followers (Uhl-Bien et al., 2014). How these two par-
ties interact is a complex and not easily explained matter.
Scholars today do not see leadership as an object that belongs to a person with
power. We see this expressed symbolically in many instances in Game of Thrones:
although the battle revolves around the object of the Iron Throne, the people who
sit on it change relatively quickly. So do crowns and golden pins of the advisors
and “Hands of the King”. At one memorable point, the Mother of Dragons,
Daenerys, throws the ruler’s whip, as a symbol of command, into the sand (Fig. 1.2)
and leaves the city of Astapor together with the soldiers freed from slavery
(S03E04). The fighters of the Army of the Unsullied follow her voluntarily. Here it
becomes clear: leadership is not created through an object, but between people,
through acceptance, shared values and appreciation.
The narrative of Game of Thrones has incorporated a view of leadership that
describes leadership as a social process that is co-created by leaders and followers
(Uhl-Bien et al., 2014). One can therefore never be sure of being firmly in the
saddle of leadership. The series continuously constructs leaders and deconstructs
them again and again. After the king is before the king!
Fig. 1.2 Ditch it now! Daenerys, Breaker of Chains, prefers to align her followers via cha-
risma and visions. (Game of Thrones (GoT), S03E04, USA, 2013, HBO, YouTube)
The only role where leadership works without any resistance is the Night King.
This mysterious figure is the leader of the White Walkers, invulnerable to normal
weapons, and can bring the dead and dragons back to life to join the growing army
of zombies. No conflict, no questions, no doubt, no words, no thoughts, no feel-
ings, no sense-making, no strategy meetings, no lack of motivation—this leader-
ship role is an overdrawn cartoon. It is never perceived as a serious alternative, but
drives the plot as an inexplicable fear, a stand-in for the irrationality of politics and
economics (refugee movements, economic crises, pandemics, climate catastro-
phes, etc.) until it eventually dies a rather unspectacular zombie death.
Leadership is a rocky road and a shaky position—that is something Daenerys
will learn, as will Jon Snow. Before his first leadership position as Lord Commander
of the Night’s Watch, Jon is told quite clearly by the experienced Alliser Thorne
(Fig. 1.3) that the position does not naturally bring permanent power: “Do you
know what leadership means, Lord Snow? It means that the person in charge gets
second guessed by every clever little twat with a mouth.” (S04E09) Rather, the
leader is constantly scrutinized and challenged. It’s difficult when every smart al-
eck is judging you. But Thorne sees the real danger in self-doubt, as if the only
thing that matters is the leader himself: “But if he starts second guessing himself,
that’s the end. For him, for the clever little twats, for everone.”
The series later reveals that Alliser had downplayed the relationship dimension.
He secretly plots and, in cooperation with others, instigates a revolt against the
commander of the Night’s Watch. Jon, who has decided not to talk to others and
Fig. 1.3 Leaders look ahead and ignore windbags. At least, that’s what Alliser Thorne says.
(GoT, S04E09, USA, 2014, HBO, YouTube)
question himself, but instead confidently lulls himself into safety, is insidiously
stabbed. De facto, everyone questions everyone else. Leadership is a social pro-
cess, a relational thing, and is continually negotiated between leaders and follow-
ers. The principle drives the narrative in Game of Thrones and culminates in many
bloody and surprising moments.
Game of Thrones shows cultural types that we all know, and which I will bring
into correspondence with models of leadership research. Although the series seems
distant from our lives in terms of form, it is not just fantasy, but directly relates
narratively and conceptually to the present in which we live. Congealed in the se-
ries as a multi-voiced creative product are notions of leadership that do not merely
exist imaginatively or theoretically, but are real and among us. My investigation
thus works with a parallelization on multiple levels, relating cultural archetypes to
models of leadership, and relating these to our present. People demand leadership
on the one hand, and are highly ambivalent and critical of it on the other. Leaders
are constructed and deconstructed. Leadership is not a position but a process and is
negotiated interactively between the participants. Finally in the series, leadership is
almost dissolved and transferred to people we would not have expected. The series
works towards this end point, slowly but inexorably, in many twists and turns.
The main characters in Game of Thrones are shaped as leader-centric models
that tend to see their followers as obedient—and always fail, because leadership is
about relationships. To illustrate this, my elaboration begins with one of the most
well-known archetypes, which Game of Thrones also presents first: The authentic
leader, in tune with his values, genuine and straightforward, “the strong silent
type,” the man from the North, the benevolent patriarch, Lord Eddard Stark of
Winterfell (Chap. 2). He is overwhelmed with the complexity of the power games
in the capital and cannot understand the values of others, so he soon fails tragically.
He is followed by subsequent leaders, who appear as a safe bet, because they
bring their social, cultural and economic capital with them as privileges, like Robb
Stark and his mother Catelyn (Chap. 3). “Mama Direwolf” is the mother archetype,
the strong woman in the background who empowers, supports, and patiently work
on his son—but is not appreciated or taken seriously. This leads to the bloodiest
season ending in series history, the “Red Wedding.”
In the power vacuum, various players now try to assert themselves, such as
qualified women like Yara Greyjoy or strategic players like Varys (Chap. 4), who,
however, lack one part: the penis and the potency associated with it. Other mascu-
line leaders boast about the phallus and assert themselves.
Finally, the season 6 finale marks the hour of women rising to the highest levels
of power as leaders, such as Sansa Stark (Chap. 5), who learned a lot and went from
romantic teenager to war strategist and revenge taker.
Cersei Lannister, the feminine, passive-aggressive type, and at times anti-
feminist schemer isolates herself from her environment as a power-over type. She
assumes a lonely leadership role that she shares with other political and religious
leaders in cultural history (Chap. 6).
A ray of hope is Daenerys Targaryen, the archetype of a charismatic leader: the
“Mother of Dragons” promises a revolution and followers worship her—and then
she loses herself in her own theatricality that becomes devoid of purpose (Chap. 7).
A final attempt to find a traditional leader is made with Jon Snow, who is pushed
into the leader role by his followers in times of crisis against his will—a classical
romance of leadership (Chap. 8).
This does not work out either, and with the exit of the last charismatic and hand-
some man, Game of Thrones serves us a form of leadership that does not corre-
spond to the expectations of the mainstream: “cripples, bastards, and broken
things” (Chap. 9). While leadership in the medieval fantasy world is not yet given
into the hands of a democratic society, it is eventually all the more subtly and sym-
bolically resolved in the medium of the Three-Eyed Raven, who, beyond authentic-
ity, forms of capital, clichés of masculinity, gender roles, and charisma, sits in a
wheelchair as a collective memory on an unspectacular wooden stage and presents
a disinterested face. The audience is left to reconsider and take on their responsibil-
ity in the context of leading and following.
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Authenticity (Eddard Stark)
2
Abstract
In Game of Thrones, no one embodies honesty and authenticity like Lord
Eddard (Ned) Stark of Winterfell, Warden of the North. His motto: “Winter is
coming”. His outfit: coarse leather, fur and pelt, disheveled braid hairstyle,
rough, manly, honest. His attitude: the same. Stark is the main character in the
first season. He stays true to his principles, is an idealist. But being good doesn’t
protect you from failure: Ned dies in a cruel way and without honor, because he
can’t build up an understanding of and relationship with the deceitful antago-
nists.
Keywords
Authentic leadership • Honesty • Accent • Embodiment
Honesty and authenticity are embodied in Game of Thrones by no one better than
Lord Eddard (Ned) Stark of Winterfell, Warden of the North (played by Sean
Bean). Eddard is Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North. His motto: “Winter
is coming”. His outfit: coarse leather, fur and pelt, disheveled braid hairstyle,
manly, honest. His attitude: exactly like this. Eddard Stark is the main character of
the story in the first season—until he dies cruelly and dishonorably. He remains
true to his principles, is an idealist even in the face of the most devious oppo-
nents—but fails spectacularly at the end of the first season.
Eddard Stark is introduced in the very first episode as a sympathetic patriarch,
head of the family and dutiful ruler of Winterfell Castle, the northernmost of the
© Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 15

B. Biehl, Leadership in Game of Thrones,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-34117-6_2
16 2 Authenticity (Eddard Stark)
castles in the Seven Kingdoms. He is first seen standing on the balustrade in the
castle courtyard, his wife Catelyn at his side, watching the joyful crowd of children
at archery and combat training. The idyll is interrupted by news that a renegade
Night’s Watch soldier has been apprehended from the Border Wall’s penal colony
in the northern realms. Stark nods thoughtfully, saddles the horse, and rides out,
over green hills and misty valleys, to deal with the deserter. The high and magic-
built Wall of solid ice separates the Land of Always Winter, the realm of wildlings
and mysterious White Walkers from the seven kingdoms. Eddard Stark is Warden
of the North for a royal court far to the South, quietly, conscientiously, and straight-
forwardly doing his duty.
Soon Eddard receives a visit from King Robert Baratheon, his old comrade-in-
arms and friend, who wants him to join the court in King’s Landing. After the death
of the royal advisor, Eddard Stark is to become “Hand of the King”, closest advisor
to Robert. Although he already suspects that this journey will be a great challenge
for him, and his wife and others warn him, he dutifully follows his call and travels
South. At the court of King’s Landing, Eddard is uncomfortable from the start: he
is a man of action, and the scheming and intrigues overwhelm him. Soon Eddard
finds out that the king’s children, Joffrey, Tommen and Myrcella, are not his bio-
logical ones, but come from the incestuous relationship of Queen Cersei with her
brother Jamie. After the sudden death of the King—Cersei had him poisoned—
Eddard is imprisoned and later executed for alleged treason against King Joffrey
Baratheon.
In front of the people of King’s Landing in the presence of his two daughters, he
is beheaded by the executioner of the mad teenage king Joffrey Baratheon. Millions
of viewers who had singled out Ned Stark as the darling of the first season, the hero
of the series, the sympathetic leader figure, are left baffled. If not outraged. And
unsettled, because we all realized once again: being good doesn’t protect you from
failure.
This scene introduced a principle throughout the series Game of Thrones: Main
characters can die. And unexpectedly. And good ones, too. It is understood as a
special feature of the series that not only insignificant minor characters succumb,
but also central protagonists. Even the decapitation of the audience’s favorite Ned
Stark was in the story by George R. R. Martin. This shock hit viewers harder than
many other series’ deaths, because there was something special about Eddard: hon-
esty, commitment, and authenticity. People who stand firmly by their principles,
whom you can rely on, and who still come across as authentic and genuine. It’s rare
to find that these days in an age of widespread narcissism, of which reality TV
shows, for example, are full (Collins, 2017), and even rarer in the slick, cold busi-
ness and political world—which is, for example, illustrated in TV series like House
2 Authenticity (Eddard Stark) 17
of Cards. You like Ned, you’ve chosen him as the main character, you want to fol-
low him, and suddenly—what a shock—he’s missing his head.
This scene shows us, via the motive of leadership, that even good leaders or
authentic leaders can fail down the line. The so-called “authentic leadership” model
first emerged in the 1990s in management research. It describes acting in accor-
dance with personal values, motives and emotions (Gardner et al., 2005). Authentic
leaders know who they are, what they think, and how they act, and are perceived by
others as being aligned with their values. Those who lead authentically ideally fol-
low their “true self” and their own standards of integrity and universal moral stan-
dards, which reinforces in employees a willingness to also act in accordance with
their internal and shared values. Just watching Ned on the show, we all perhaps sit
up a little bit straighter and promise ourselves—finally—to make a completely
honest statement to our colleagues and boss back at the office! We didn’t do it then,
and we all know why.
What went so horribly wrong when Eddard Stark is so authentic and did every-
thing right for himself? You have to realize, Stark failed not in spite of his authen-
ticity, but because of it. Lord Varys once says to him that he is an honest and honor-
able man, “I have met so few of those in my life. When I see what honesty and
honour have brought you, I understand why.” (Martin, 2011, p. 278) While Eddard
is authentic, he has not implemented some components of good authentic leader-
ship. These include critical reflection on one’s self, including one’s weaknesses,
and understanding and relating to the particular environment in which the person
must act (Gardner et al., 2011, p. 1142). This relational side is essential to authentic
leadership but is often overlooked as people tend to assume that leadership is only
about the attributes of the leader. The relational approach advocated here shows
that it is about the interaction between people.
Authentic attributes are what Eddard Stark definitely possesses. At the very
beginning of the first episode, the Warden of the North established the following
substantial sentence: “He who passes the sentence should swing the sword.” This
motto is put into practice when, out in the North, a young border guard of the
Night’s Watch is detained. Desertion is punishable by death, and the Warden of the
North carries it out on the spot with his own hands (Fig. 2.1). The young man
knows he has broken his oath, and explains it by the terrible White Walkers he
wanted to warn his family about. Eddard Stark calmly listens to the sentences and
respectfully speaks his words before wielding the great sword (S01E01):
In the name of Robert of the House Baratheon, First of His Name, King of the Andals
and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm, I, Eddard
of the House Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, sentence you to die.
Fig. 2.1 Doing the unpleasant jobs yourself. Lord Eddard Stark is tough, but authentic.
(GoT, S01E01, USA, 2011, HBO, YouTube)
The head rolls, the sons Robb, Jon Snow and little Brandon stand a few feet
away watching still. Stark asks the child Brandon afterwards if he understood why
he as the judge had to wield the sword. The boy nods, apparently understanding
that this attitude entails to never lightly judge others, standing up for the decision,
and sharing some of the pain. Wise words! All the Stark sons continue to repeat
them in later episodes, and the audience perceives them as genuine and honest.
Particularly so, as other powerful leaders see killing differently: It is always much
more conveniently delegated to executioners (Joffrey), monstrous bodyguards
(Cersei), or dragons (Daenerys). Assuming we were to be fictitiously sentenced to
death in a very medieval way, who wouldn’t choose Ned Stark as their executive?
He’s the leader to trust. When later, the proud Warden of the North is quite sponta-
neously sentenced to death by the crazy teenage king Joffrey in King’s Landing at
the end of this season, and beheaded by the mute royal executioner Ser Ilyn Payn
in a black hangman’s cap, the contrast couldn’t be stronger.
The filmic realization shows the contrast in a large narrative arc from the scene
in the North to the execution in the South: in the gray North, the proud Ned, the
wolf, appears in an armor of leather, with fur and a mighty sword on a green hill
and speaks the death sentence thoughtfully—in the South he finds himself dishev-
eled in a leather skirt, speaking with a shaky voice on a rock, the coloring is yel-
lowish and brown, extracted from his natural environment, failed, reduced. Back in
the North, his young son Brandon quietly watched the execution, as a didactic
measure for him as a future heir to understand duty and honor. In the South, his
young daughter Arya happens to watch from the crowd as her father is beheaded.
She is left shocked and severely traumatized. Arya, for the remainder of the series,
will never again be able to trust anyone, becoming a cynical killer and vigilante.
The audience is shocked and even the actors are horrified (Vargas, 2019). Stark’s
strength is to behave consistently and thus “genuinely” as a film character, although
authentic leadership does not mean always to express oneself straightforwardly
and completely honestly, which may be unprofessional sometimes. One’s inner
state is imperceptible to outsiders (Ladkin & Taylor, 2010), so one must not be
authentic, rather appear to be so. This idea had also been expressed by sociologist
Erving Goffman (1959) in his theory of impression management. Authentic leader-
ship behavior, however, refrains from sophisticated impression management tech-
niques that are planned and rehearsed, such as standardized arm movements when
speaking, exaggerated voice modulation, and actor-like behavior familiar from
many politicians and corporate leaders.
Eddard Stark’s thick Northern accent, impulsive physicality, and a facial ex-
pression that at times clearly shows his disapproval are more captivating. For ex-
ample, he pushes Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish aside when he suggests visiting his
brothel, thrusts him against the wall in a chokehold, and hisses menacingly, “You’re
a funny man, eh. A veeery funny man.” He suspects an immoral offer, although in
this case his wife Catelyn was temporarily hiding in the establishment. This makes
the hearts of millions of TV viewers beat faster, who every day at work try to ex-
press themselves in a reasonably polite manner, control their facial expressions and
often have to squeeze out a nice smile, no matter how stupid clients’ and col-
leagues’ suggestions are.
Despite appearing genuine, Ned Stark was not well received in the power center
of King’s Landing in the South. At first, he accepted King Robert Baratheon’s invi-
tation to act as his Hand. Honorably, he fills this role, investigating with care and
conscience the mysterious accidental death of his predecessor in the advisory role,
Jon Arryn. But friction quickly arises in the South between the man from the North,
with his authentic leadership style and demeanor, and the dominant Lannister fam-
ily, who, while also in tune with their own convictions, follow their own ethics.
Some obvious differences already appear on the aesthetic level, in the speech
that is perceived with the senses. Ned is portrayed with strong Northern English
pronunciation. English dialects are generally used for fantasy adaptations, and
Westeros can be seen as the sociolinguistic representation of Britain. Northern
English is different from the polished pronunciation of what is known as Received

Pronunciation, which is spoken by the South and by the (upper) middle and upper
classes, including the British royal family. In King’s Landing, Eddard’s speech
melody completely isolates him from the prestige accents, the upper-class English
of the Lannister family, Varys, Petyr Baelish and the other actors. Here we can
aurally experience the separation of Stark as a foreign body in the system—later
still, Cersei will tell him he’d better go home, “The South doesn’t seem to agree
with you.” The social elite of King’s Landing speaks classy and behaves com-
pletely differently. They also look different and dress more neatly, while Eddard
sticks to his rough clothes and braided hairstyle, which had already attracted nega-
tive attention when he rode into King’s Landing. After greeting the wagon train
from Winterfell, Stark is invited to the council meeting by a representative of the
court, saying he still has time to change: “If you’d like to change into something
more appropriate?” (S01E03). The man from the North gives him a grim look,
takes off only his leather riding gloves and paces as he is towards the throne room,
where he finds the polished Jamie Lannister in golden armor.
When it comes to language, the only exception is King Robert (played by Mark
Addy), who, with a strong Northern English, appears uncivilized and thoughtless,
a drunk and a glutton with a barely restrained animalistic sex drive. Formally, he
holds the highest social status as the king, but he is self-conscious of his position
as an outsider when he says to Ned, “I swear to you, I was never so alive as when I
was winning this throne, or so dead as now that I’ve won it.” Robert is unable to
participate in political court life, his accent reinforcing the sense that he lacks both
the talent and the skills to lead effectively in this environment. Thus, he has re-
treated to hunting, boozing, and prostitutes.
Both Northern men not only wear the braid hairstyle, but speak with a non-
rhotic accent like all English accents, so they do not express the letter r, unlike
Americans who strongly emphasize all r especially at the end of words (e.g., the
word “car” in English as [kɑː] and American [kɑɹ]). Northern English, as a varia-
tion of a typical standard language (Durrell, 1999), is distinguished from Southern
English, including Received Pronunciation, by several elements. For example, the
“foot-strut split” is absent in Northern English, so that “cut” [kʌt] and “put” [pʊt]
rhyme and are both pronounced [ʊ] (i.e.: [cʊt] and [pʊt]). The famous prase: winter
is “coming [kʌmin]” is pronounced “winteris [cʊmin]”. There are also variants of
“book” not as [bʊk] but [buːk] or even “look” as [luːk]. Thus, Northern English is
also spoken of as “Oop North” [ʊp nɔːθ]. The character Jon Snow is not [joːn
Fig. 2.2 Language is a key leadership tool and is part of social interaction. (“The Jon Snow
Accent! Game of Thrones Accents Tutorial,” Learn English with Papa Teach Me, YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Eu2w5X6w0w)
snəʊ], but becomes something like [jʊn snɔː]. Also, Northern English lacks the so-
called “trap-bath split”, so “bath” doesn’t sound like [bɑːθ], but like [bæθ], and the
much-used word “bastard” [bɑ:stəd] becomes [bæstəd]. This is very clearly imple-
mented in the original version of Game of Thrones, with the men from the North in
particular standing out. These subtleties have also attracted attention on social me-
dia, especially among accent-fixated speakers of British and American English.
YouTube tutorials allow viewers to bring themselves [ʊp təʊ/spiːd/] “up to speed”,
so to speak (Fig. 2.2).
Dialects are used in products of popular culture such as film and television to
fulfil a symbolic function: it shows the regional and social background of the
speaker, political dimensions and social gender (Lippi-Green, 2012). Northern
English emphasises certain character traits; in the case of Ned and Robert, it refers
to masculinity through stereotypes such as military success and dominance, and to
straightforwardness and honesty through its undiluted reference to local origin. In
a dialogue with Jamie Lannister (S01E03), this contrast is very much evident: the
genuine, direct nature from the North and the self-assured arrogance of the South.
The two meet in the highly symbolic location of the throne room, where Jamie
(played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) sits next to the Iron Throne.
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THE END
BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD

MAP OF
EGYPT and the SOUDAN
1904
London: Stanford’s Geogl. Estabt.
(Large-size)
London: Edward Arnold.
FOOTNOTES:
[1]1 metre = about 39 inches.

[2]A cubic metre of water equals, roughly, 1 ton.
[3]For the purpose of illustration, it is interesting to compare the
discharge of the Thames at Teddington:
Cubic Metres per
Second.
During June the average discharge for the twenty
35
years ending 1902 was
The average in June, 1903, was 178
The discharge on June 21, 1903, was 387
On February 21, 1900, it was 533
And on November 18, 1894 (greatest on record), it
1,065
was
I have given the discharge in cubic metres per second, the unit
generally in use on the Nile. On the Thames the figures are
usually given in gallons per day, which sounds much more
imposing. If the number of cubic metres per second is multiplied
by about 1,900,000, it gives approximately the number of gallons
per day. But, after all, the discharge of the Thames in June, 1903,
was not so very far below that of the Nile during the same month.
[4]The Egyptian peasant, however, refuses to accept the
prosaic evidence of his eyes about these rats, and, like the stout
conservative he is, prefers to believe the old tradition that they
turn to mud during the flood season. Many a man will gravely
assert that he has himself observed the transformation actually in
progress.
[5]1 Kantar = nearly 100 lbs.
[6]Cf. p. 71.
[7]Estimated. £E1 = £1 0s. 6d.
[8]Estimated.
Transcriber's note:
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1 Introduction: Popular Culture and Leadership ����������������������������������� 1

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management with functions such as planning, organizing, leading and controlling,

The fantasy world presents a range of protagonists who can be discussed as

Towers, I. (2018). Learning how to manage by watching TV. International Journal of

© Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 15

English is different from the polished pronunciation of what is known as Received

Yusuf Pasha, 162

BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD

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