Leadership Lessons from Henry V Part Five: Motivation

Part Five: How Henry motivated his troops towards victory

I recently attended a superb training session on Inspirational Leadership from Ben at Contender Charlie. The messages on leadership were based on Shakespeare's Henry V.
You can find handouts from the course here.

In this final post of a short series, I''m going to share some of my learning from the course.

Henry's most famous monologue goes like this:

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility,
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage,
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect,
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon, let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a gallèd rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swilled with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English,
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof,
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument.
Dishonor not your mothers. Now attest
That those whom you called fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture. Let us swear
That you are worth your breeding, which I doubt not,

How can we learn from Henry's motivational skills?

• He was one of them - we're in this together! You're problems are my problems.
• He believes in his troops - if you don't believe in someone you don't motivate positively, only negatively.
• He displays real passion.
• He creates a common identity behind which you can unite.
• He honours his troops - he calls them 'friends'.
• He reminds them of the big picture - why they're doing what they're doing.
• He's realistic and says it like it is.
• He uses vivid images, stories and metaphors. These can be worth far more than data.
• He chooses his moment to inspire.
• He also uses some negative motivation skills by saying if we don't do it well, this could be the scenario we face. The choice is yours.