Exploring the Dance of Leadership
by Bob and Janet Denhardt

This is the second in a series of articles revolving around the topics that will be presented at the 15th Annual Leadership Summit scheduled for September 27-29, 2007 at the Union League Club of Chicago in Chicago, IL.  The program entitled, The Art and Practice of Leadership in Local Government’ includes underlying themes on creativity and the inner nature of leadership. 
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Any local government official – whether elected or appointed – knows that leadership is an art rather than a science.  But too often that idea is dismissed as “too soft.”

We decided to challenge this conventional wisdom and take seriously the notion of leadership as an art.  So we first asked artists, musicians, and especially dancers how they approached their disciplines, then we translated their ideas into the world of leadership.

We began by interviewing some of the premier dancers and choreographers in the United States and indeed around the world: David Parsons, Liz Lerman, Septime Webre, to name just a few.  We did not ask them about leadership.  We asked them about their art.  But the lessons we learned about leadership were substantial.

We wanted to confirm that those lessons made sense to leaders.  So we conducted a series of interviews with prominent leaders, leaders in the world of politics – senators, governors, and mayors; leaders in the world of business – CEO’s of Motorola, Kodak, and Honeywell Aerospace; leaders in education – university presidents; leaders in the military – a former chief of staff of the Air Force, an astronaut and space shuttle commander; and even leaders in the world of sports – the football coach at Tennessee and the basketball coach at Oregon. 

We learned from these leaders that their work bears many similarities to the approaches that we learned from artists, musicians, and dancers.  All were familiar, for example, with rhythm and timing, with improvising, creativity, and spontaneity, with communicating in images, symbols, and metaphors, and with the importance of focus, concentration, and discipline.  They understood the art of leadership. 

How can we use these lessons to prepare better leaders? 

Developing Leadership Skills
First, it is important to clarify what we are talking about are acts of leading at all levels – in families, in small groups, in large organizations, even in entire societies.  We think there’s something all of these levels have in common.  We think the essence of leadership is its energizing effect.  Leadership energizes. 

If you think of how things go in small groups or teams, you generally start out with a conversation that pretty much goes in circles until someone says something that people pick up on and become excited about.  At that point, an act of leadership has occurred. 

What’s interesting is that the act of leading need not be an act on the part of the formal leader – in fact, there may not be a formal leader. But when a group is energized, an act of leadership has just occurred.

Second, let’s distinguish leadership from other kinds of behaviors.  In our view, acts of leading are different from acts of power – in fact, as local government officials well know, a continued reliance on power, in the long run, can undercut one’s leadership. 

Similarly, acts of leading are different from acts of managing.  A classic article by Abraham Zaleznick in the Harvard Business Review is instructive here.  And if you look at Zaleznick’s list of characteristics and activities of leaders (as opposed to managers), what is striking is that none of them require higher mathematics.  Or even lower mathematics.  They are not rocket science.  In fact they are not science at all. 

They are art – which the dictionary defines as “the conscious use of skill and creative imagination.”  (Sounds like leadership, right?)  For this reason, it’s not surprising to find such a prominent leader as former Secretary of State Colin Powell saying, “Leadership is the art of doing more than the science of management says is possible.” 

Again, leadership is an art and needs to be studied that way.

The Essentials of Artistic Leadership
That leads us to ask, “What are the essentials of artistic leadership?”  Perhaps the most basic question confronting potential leaders is “What is it that leaders do that causes others to follow?”  If we can figure out the answer to this question, then we should be able to improve on those specific skills and become better leaders.

We recently talked with an Olympic basketball coach who pointed out that while different basketball players look completely different taking a jump shot, an engineer analyzing momentum, gravity, torque, etc. would say there are certain essential things that have to happen for the shot to be good.  He said, “Everything else is just personality.” 

We think the same is true of leadership.  Leaders look different – they come in all shapes and sizes - and they certainly act differently.  But there are certain essential things that have to happen to cause others to follow.  We think that the most important of these are: 1) Leaders must connect with others emotionally in a way that energizes them and causes them to act, and 2) leaders must provide the assurance that we need to confront important values.

There are many ways this can happen, artistically speaking.  One is through attention to the rhythm of the situation.  A steady rhythm is a sign of a good working order; it lets people know there is something regular and predictable they can count on.  However, this doesn’t mean everyone has to operate with the same rhythm.  Nor does it mean the rhythm should be mechanical - devoid of breath, spirit, and energy.

There are plenty of examples of the way rhythm affects the work we do.  Certainly most people recognize that there are differences in pace or tempo in their organizations from time to time.  And indeed one of the leader’s roles is to help set the pace of the organization.  For some that means quickening the pace.  In fact, one CEO told us that his job was “to take the organization around the curves as fast as we can go without falling off the cliff.” 

On the other hand, at some times a slower pace may make more sense.  A corporate VP told us that the tempo of her group’s work had slowed since they moved their division from one company to another.  But she said that was a good thing.  “The quality of our work has improved.  And the quality of our work life has improved.”

Variations in rhythm among groups can be a positive thing, but there should be some commonality.  The differences in rhythm that people bring should not be considered “problems” but opportunities for action.  Getting the right person and the right rhythm is necessary to effective action.

So the rhythm of the information technology department may be different from that of the public works department, and that difference can in fact be healthy for the overall organization.  But an important skill of the successful leader is the capacity to identify rhythms, to become adept in different rhythms, and to translate across rhythmic differences. 

But a leader might also want to vary the rhythm of an organization, in order to stimulate creativity or new thinking.  Retreats and conferences are deliberate attempts to break the normal day-to-day routine, allowing for people to think more broadly about themselves and their organization.

Another quite different change in rhythm – but one that’s familiar to many people -happens when a new leader comes into an organization with a completely different rhythm from that already established.  People get frustrated; they feel out of place; they may even get angry.  It’s the leader’s job to understand the rhythm of the organization, and then begin to shape that rhythm in the most effective way.

Working with the rhythms of human interactions is one way leaders exercise their art.  But there are others.  Leaders – as artists - frequently engage in improvised behavior, especially improvised speech; they communicate in images, symbols, and metaphors; and they are aided by special powers of focus, concentration and dedication to their work.   These are some of the special skills that artistic leaders can employ to enhance their leadership, whether in small groups, large organizations, or even entire societies.  This is the art of leadership, or, as we call it, the dance of leadership.

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The preceding material is based on” The Dance of Leadership: The Art of Leading in Business, Government, and Society” by Robert B. Denhardt and Janet V. Denhardt. M.E. Sharpe, Inc.  Amonk, N.Y. 2006.  www.danceofleadership.com
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Bob and Janet Denhardt teach leadership and organizational change in the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University.  Portions of this article were adapted from their book, The Dance of Leadership:  The Art of Leading in Business, Government, and Society, and from workshops based on their book.  For more information, their website is www.danceofleadership.com.

The annual Leadership Summit is NLC’s premiere leadership development program for local officials.  The advance registration deadline is July 15th.  Designed as a leadership retreat, the Summit provides personal leadership development that is focused on community perspectives.  For more information, contact the Leadership Training Institute at (202) 626-3127 or visit the NLC website at www.nlc.org