It was really great to see so many past and present students at the Leader 21 Conference last Fiday at the Titanic Quarter. It was inspiring to see that you have all started your leadership journey and taken leadership development very seriously.
One of the sessions at the conference discussed the "Art of Leadership" and used a orchestra conductor as a metaphor for leadership and management. This reminded me of an article that I came across some time ago which also used this metaphor.
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BRAMWELL TOVEY, artistic director and conductor of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra
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The article is by Henry Mintzberg and he writes about the Art of Leadership in his 1998 Harvard Business Review article Covert Leadership: Notes on Managing Professionals (reprint available on Amazon). He attributes leadership to the then-director of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Bramwell Tovey, and describes leadership as “…unobtrusive actions that infuse all the other things a manager does.” (as opposed to traditional leadership actions like motivating and coaching). And found it particularly effective for managing professionals. His article is subtitled: “Knowledge workers respond to inspiration, not supervision.”
Check out his article from either Amazon or the Harvard Business Review Electronic Journal (Nov-Dec 1998) on the Learning Resources area on the University of Ulster Portal. If all else fails pop me an email and I will send you a PDF copy.
Happy reading and let me know what you think of the article.
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