Learning about Leadership through Others

Albert Einstein once said, "we can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." Many leaders have come to recognize this, but for some managers a capacity to think differently does not come naturally. Seeing the world from a fresh perspective requires transcending one’s own situation, and the U.S.-based International Forum has created unusual opportunities to do so.

The forum brings executives of global corporations together in varied locations around the world for short seminars. The executives share critical issues confronting their businesses and then seek fresh perspectives from other participants who come from different countries and industries. The forum also arranges for the executives to step into the shoes of very different kinds of leaders, ranging from orchestra conductors, opera singers, and calligraphy masters to mayors of troubled cities and principals of social and religious institutions.

Participants in the forum’s "Leadership Through Music" program, for example, take the baton of Peter Leonard – the music director of the Augsburg Symphony and Opera in Germany – to experience how difficult it is to conduct a group of expert performers. Each instrumentalist plays a different score, but with little more than a lifting of the baton, the taking of a breath, and eye contact with specific players, the conductor must ensure that they play together as an ensemble.

One participating executive who took the baton learned the power of the small gesture. "I feel as if I am driving a race car," he recalled. "There is so much energy you must control and direct. The flick of a wrist or the tilt of my head causes noises to come from parts of the orchestra I never knew existed."

The opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony presents the conductor with a dilemma. It is unclear how long to hold certain notes since the key signature indicates one way, the actual score another. The decision is the conductor’s to make, and once made the conductor has set the opening tone for the symphony. The conductor can relax briefly and let the orchestra take on a momentum of its own, but only until the next point of interpretive ambiguity, when he or she again must decisively resolve the uncertainty, and these acts successive build the players’ confidence in their leader and the quality of their performance.

Learning from the leadership challenges of others by momentarily stepping into their roles can be an invaluable stretching. Albert Einstein also said, "common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen," and facing leadership challenges from others’ perspectives is one way for transcending the limitations of common sense.

Nan Doyal, managing director of the International Forum, can be reached at doyal@internationalforum.com, general questions can be directed to learn@internationalforum.com, and information on the program is available at http://www.internationalforum.com

From the Wharton Leadership Digest, February, 2000.