ABOUT
Not long ago, I was at my dad’s house cleaning out my old closet and reliving memories from the various childhood things my parents kept for me. That’s when I found the aged notes from when I’d attended Drum Major Camp. Before I started reading the handwritten pages, circa 1994, I chuckled thinking, oh, this will be good. Then I began to read… and I was absolutely blown away!
Throughout my career, I’ve never stopped to consider where my perceptions and ideals around leadership came from, but they simply didn’t appear during my travels. Aside from the example set by my parents, I now know where much of how I think about leadership comes from, and I would like to share it with you here. I think it’s pretty neat.
As you read through this, think about how these thoughts and concepts might apply to pretty much any organization or situation.
THOUGHTS
My notes are separated into 3 high level sections. I will break out each section with thoughts from my notes.
- General Leadership
- Leading as a Drum Major
- Positivity
General Leadership
Leading is about Forgiving and For Giving. It’s important to distinguish between the two because they are uniquely different. People don’t get better by making them feel worse. The most powerful thing you can do as a leader is forgive and to give grace to someone that is struggling, made a mistake or something else negative.
Followers are driven by What’s in it for me?, Ego, and it feels good.
Leaders are driven by the we - the people, mission oriented, and knowing, not feeling.
The 4 Pillars of Leadership
- People are more important than their title
- You cannot lead unless you can lead yourself
- You’re only worth what you give away
- You can only give away what you have
Inspiration or Enthusiasm/Excitement? Inspiration fosters competition, cooperation and creation. Enthusiasm/Excitement fosters feelings of superiority and ‘show-offs’. Enthusiasm is from the Greek ‘en theos’ or ‘in the presence of the divine’. We must not strive for enthusiasm but for inspiration.
Discipline to a follower is 90% attitude and 10% skill. Several leadership traits to encourage discipline: knowledgeable, charismatic, fearless, supportive, listener, unselfish.
Leading as a Drum Major
Breaking out of your comfort zone. The safest thing to do with your band is to do those things that you are most comfortable with. However, leaders must take chances and risks at the right time to widen your confort zone. To lead, we must step out of our comfort zones. When we have left our comfort zones, we can sometimes get discouraged and retreat back into where we feel comfortable. As leaders, we must encourage when other leaders and followers are out of their comfort zones.
Establishing a relationship with your superiors is crucial, be adaptable and flexible.
Don’t wait to be told what to do, take charge
The Drum Major Attitude is made of these points
- Commandability - giving commands, how/when/where to give them
- Spirit - positivity, excitement
- Inspiration - someone to be looked up to, respected
- Humility - not being self-righteous or cocky
- Respect for others
- Self-discipline
- Honor
- Integrity
- Tactfulness
- Commanding Presence
While you are in the act of being the Drum Major there are four main responsibilities
- Maintain control over tempo - stay the course, do not get ahead or fall behind
- Interpret the music - what’s the style, tempo, and volume
- Inspire musicians to play - movements to temp as the music is interpreted, feel it and flow with it, allow it to take you where it wants to go
- Showmanship - how you bring it all together
Positivity
Controlling your feelings
I control my thoughts
My thoughts control my feelings
I control my feelings
Calculating self-worth
self-esteem [outside sources] + self-image [inward sources] = self-worth
A good leader, people will admire and respect you
A great leader, people will admire and respect themselves
CONCLUSION
As I reflected on these points and put them into perspective, I found there are 2 solid commands that all leaders should set as their north star.
- Leaders make other leaders
- Leaders inspire others to do things they never thought possible
I would challenge everyone to reflect on this as you think about where you are today, whether you’re leading up, leading others or leading a household. I realize, not everything here is applicable to everyone, but if you break down the concepts it becomes clear where you can apply a few of these points to your every day leadership. Everyone gets better when the leader gets better and people want to follow a leader that’s always real, rather than one that’s always right. So, if you find yourself with fleeing, disengaged, unhappy or angry employees, it’s not because you ran out of beer in the breakroom kegerator or the ping-pong table is broken. I challenge you to look inward and reflect on a few things above. I believe you’ll find the answer. It’s always the leader.
I also want to call out this great podcast (and where my line about everyone getting better, h.t. Craig Groschel) all about leadership. I’ve listened to the whole thing and it is truly amazing.
Craig Groschel Leadership Podcast
You can find this on all the podcast places.
Oh, and for those that are curious…
Photo by Galen Crout on Unsplash
