Leadership: does yours make music?

Published: 2011-05-13   There are 6 comments ... please add yours below

Like any effective leader, a good sports-person or concert performer must attract willing and committed followers. Not only their fellow players on field or stage, but also audiences, who pay to attend and enjoy the performance. Think of your favourites: how much do you pay to be present – personally or virtually? So, here’s a thought: who would pay to watch you leading your team at work? Perhaps not a nice idea after all! So, let me share the tricks I’ve learnt from a famous performer, who’s been dead for almost 30 years but people still pay to experience.

Glenn Gould was a classical pianist from Canada, who early on enjoyed a stellar performing career – notable for his new and insightful interpretations of Bach, Beethoven and other composers. Some people were scandalised; others enraptured. So, what was he doing? Why do people like me still seek out the recordings from his early live performances? Let me explain it in terms of leadership. You can check which pointers you might find useful.

• Have clear intent. Are you certain what you’re trying to achieve as leader of your current project or venture? Is this coming across to your team? Gould leaves me in no doubt what he’s trying to do when playing a particular piece; and, what he believes the composer intended. That’s his strength and starting point. He’s not just copying others.
• Show the architecture. When you experience a good building, you can see what it’s all about whether standing in front or once inside. A good pianist will have the same ability to help you hear the structure of what the composer wrote and how the current part fits into the whole. Everything then sounds logical. Would your team say that’s true of your leadership?
• Get the pace right. Too many leaders rush important activities but dwell on trivial ones. Their speed dictated by how busy they are or a deadline they accepted unquestioningly. So, it’s not surprising some outcomes are sub-par. Gould sets his pace according to what the intent and architecture demand. At a performance, Leonard Bernstein (conductor of the New York Philharmonic) admitted sheepishly that the tempo was Gould’s, not his!
• Phrase well. Do your memos communicate what you want – with correct emphasis and tone? Or, is each followed by requests for clarification or explanation? Each phrase Gould plays leaves you in no doubt about where it starts and finishes and what it means. Each has crystalline clarity. He practiced; he didn’t just dash things off.
• Know when to move on. Gould retired early from live performances because he no longer enjoyed them. He focused on recording. Do you have the courage to make a change when a leadership role has taken all you can offer; or you no longer enjoy it? Or do you stick around, grimly turning the handle? Until others decide it’s time for you to go.

Gould was highly self-disciplined – with unswerving commitment, application and courage. As leaders, living by his lessons requires nothing less from you or me. What do you think?

Dr. Timothy Pascoe AM
PhD (Cambridge), MBA (Harvard), BE & BEc (Adelaide)
Creator, V|E|C|T|O|R Leadership^®