TEDx Talk @ TEDx Vienna
THE SOUND OF LEADERSHIP
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In my early career as a violinist of professional orchestras I started analysing what this team of specialists — an orchestra — needs, wants and expects from its leaders to be able to perform at their very best!
By doing so I realised: the perfect place to analyse the best way to form any strong and active team is in fact an orchestra. It’s so condensed, everything gets so clear!
That is for three reasons:
- an orchestra is a true high-performance team of highly educated and specialised individuals: no doubt about that, as you know we have to be creative and act and perform together in tenths of seconds… observing the pinnacle of high-performance-teams allows for some important insights!
- deep down musicians always aim for excellence: we know mediocrity is death to every kind of art!
- and most important: music is happening NOW: so there is no delay what so ever of the impact by the leader.
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And this is how I started to develop a method and my setting about 10 years ago, which I now call „The Sound of Leadership“, on how to boost leadership culture by direct and clear feedback from a team of specialists, those who are affected most by good or bad leadership.
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This process is intense, serious, direct, but always also in the end uplifting and good fun!
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There are three things I learned are most important for developing you best personal leadership culture:
- be yourself! — Take time to develop your own and personal leadership style! Imitating any kind of role-model or external concept might impress in certain circumstances, but will not reach your team in the long run!
- identify with the content! — If you, the leader, are passionate for the project, the purpose of what you do, the team will WANT to fully support you! Let them do so!
- this might not fit into the picture of some strong leader, but your job is to serve the people you lead! — That’s what we keep telling our political leaders, serve the country and the people, but it’s true also in all other areas. As a leader you set the frame and environment for all the others to feel well, know what to do and to perform at their best! Remember: the conductor doesn’t make any sound, it’s the orchestra!
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Here is where my definition of leadership comes in: Leadership is about making others better through your guidance and presence!
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We are all in the same boat: we all want to achieve something, we all want to be seen, loved and respected!
To know and internalise this fact and to live it in an emphatic way is what we call culture!
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And last and by all means not least… we are all leaders! Of course not all of us are powerful business or political leaders, but even our language makes it clear: we are leaders of our lives!