Recently, my company held a leadership training seminar called Movers & Shakespeares that I really enjoyed, despite what my prior opinion of these types of work-related seminars were. Has anyone else done something like this that they felt was really beneficial to learning about leadership, management, etc. in the workplace? I'm interested to know b/c I feel that stuff like this is rare. Movers & Shakespeares taught us about leadership using Shakespeare plays, which was really interesting!

Hi, I'm still curious about this if anyone has any input!

Hey, Goldfish,

I'm not familiar with that particular training, but I have participated in many training courses over the years, first as a participant, then as a facilitator and developer!

I learned a lot from such training programs and feel that training should be ongoing for everyone! I like the seminar/training class type of program because I feel you learn not just from the facilitator, but you get the opportunity to learn and share with other participants, too. And, while you can learn a lot by reading books and websites, the ability to interact and role play and just talk to other people can help you learn quite a bit that singular learning can't.

Plus, being able to put a list of continuing training programs on your resume shows you are eager to learn and that you take your career seriously.

In some careers or companies, one is required to participate in training programs on an ongoing basis, too.

Hi BellaDeb! Thanks for responding!! I think this kind of training is very beneficial, as well. In fact, I still apply some of the lessons we learned that day to my life at work. Our facilitators showed us clips from the movie (and Shakespeare play) Henry V, and we compared his leadership skills to our modern ones. It was really interesting. At the end of the day some of my coworkers dressed in Shakespearian garb and did a little show for us too, it was a lot of fun!

Why don't you give us a small example of how Shakespeare was used for effective leadership training? In what way did you apply what you learned? This is fascinating. I, too, believe strongly in continuing education. It's the only way you can keep up with a fast-changing world.

We actually used a Shakespeare play (rather than Shakespeare himself) to learn about leadership, it was Henry V. And as an example, during one exercise, we watched a clip from the movie where Henry has to decide whether to execute one of his friends for stealing, or spare his life purely because of their friendship. He ultimately chose to follow the law and execute his friend. We split into two teams and debated whether his decision was the correct one. You can apply this to today's workplace -- let's say you're the manager of someone who you're also friends with and they do something wrong...do you help them out because they're also your friend, or do you reprimand them like anyone else? It's a really interesting debate.