Leadership Lessons For Corporate Executives From The Orchestra Conductor

Corporate executives can learn important leadership lessons from orchestra conductors. Benjamin Zander is famous for teaching the art of possibility to youth and businesspeople. Here in Johannesburg, our own impressive, entrepreneurial maestro, Richard Cock, runs an inspiring session called “Sound Teams” with an ensemble of nine wind instrument players. 

Participants learn about diversity, teamwork, and leadership. For example, when the oboe and the clarinet play loudly together, one tends to go sharp, while the other tends to go flat. With a double reed in the mouthpiece, the oboe either makes a definite sound or none, whereas the clarinet’s single reed allows for soft beginnings and endings.

Composers therefore write scores that accommodate the diverse characteristics of each instrument, and musicians need to respect and be patient with each other’s capabilities. In the same way, managers and corporate executives need to harness diverse characteristics in their teams and teach members to appreciate different contributions.

Creating Harmony From Diverse Talents

It would be boring if every instrument played the same notes. Indeed, not only do they play different notes, but some may have long periods when they are not required at all. Silent musicians can contribute or disrupt those playing by their nonverbal presence, and of course, they have to pay attention to come back in at the right time.

In an orchestra, harmony requires individuals to limit their contribution when others should stand out. If the horn insisted on making its contribution assertively all the time, it would ruin the passage when the flute leads. What a lesson in personal humility, limiting one’s own noise to ensure the beauty of the whole.

The Transition From Performer to Corporate Executive

The difference between performing and conducting illustrates some fascinating lessons in leadership for corporate executives. After the celebrated violin soloist Itzhak Perlman shifted into a conducting career, he pointed out four elements in this transition: From following the beat to setting the pace; from performing to creating; from avoiding mistakes to making things happen; and from seeing the parts, to understanding the whole. That’s a pretty good description of what is required as managers move up the leadership ladder.

Letting Go to Lead

Leaders play through other people. The conductor is the only member of the orchestra without an instrument. Similarly, the CEO’s instrument is the organisation. But let’s take that further. Just as there is a first violin who heads the team of violinists, a work team can be self-managed with one of their number leading without giving up their expert job.

But an orchestra of sixty players with very diverse instruments needs a non-playing conductor to keep them together and lead them in interpreting the score coherently. That’s like heads of business units who have to leave behind their professional contribution to focus on setting the pace, coordinating disparate contributions, settling conflicts, and all the while ensuring that the product is a thing of beauty.

Leading At A Scale Is Like Writing A Score

What about the CEO of a large organisation? Conductors work, like business unit heads, with line of sight to their players. But they could not maintain eye contact with 5000 people in a hundred orchestras in a hundred places. That job is done by the composer, who writes the score that each conductor interprets, enabling their players to express the composer’s intentions in new ways suited to their audience.

Corporate executives are like composers who create a score that lasts for generations of conductors and orchestra members, who in turn take that inspired composition and execute it in beautiful and sometimes very different ways. The corporate “score” includes the purpose of the organization, how it is designed with interlocking and mutually supportive elements, its strategy, and what meaning is conveyed in the detail of its execution.

Great leaders inspire professional followers to make diverse contributions in teams that, through their harmony, produce artistry in purpose, energy, and beauty. What a privilege to be chief executive artist!

Jonathan Cook, a counselling psychologist, chairs the African Management Institute. This is a coaching column for Business Day, originally published on 6th August 2024 (https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/columnists/2024-08-06-jonathan-cook-great-leaders-conduct-teams-that-create-harmony-from-diverse-talents/).

If you’d like to read previous columns in this series or ask Jonathan a question please visit
http://www.africanmanagers.org/jonathan-cook