Week 2 Post 4 Book Leadership

Chapter 5 of the the Art of Possibility discusses leadership. One passage that I found to be very interesting was the following:

"One time, as we were rehearsing Mahler's Sixth Symphony, I made a seemingly routine apology to the players of the Philharmonic Orchestra of London. You see, I had should out after one passage, 'Cowbells, you didn't come in!' A few minutes later I realized that the cowbells weren't supposed to play at that moment so I called out to the percussion section, 'I'm so sorry, I was wrong about that entrance. I see you don't play there.' After the rehearsal, I was amazed that no less than three musicians came to me separately and privately to say that they couldn't remember the last time they had heard a conductor admit his own mistake" (Zander, 2000, p.69)

This passage really got me thinking about the concept of leadership and how a good leader cannot be afraid to admit their own mistakes. If we as leaders are afraid to own up to a mistake, than we make ourselves appear to be some super human. Everyone makes mistakes and we, as leaders, need to demonstrate that the important thing about mistakes is recognizing them and learning from them. If we hide our mistakes under the rug we are not learning anything.

Below is an excellent video on leadership.



References:
cmoeinc. (2008, September 22). Qualities of Leadership [Video File]. Video posted to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhxINyIZ454