Leadership as an art form

“Every Leader Is an Artist”

By Michael D’Malley and William F. Baker

McGrawHill, 2012

Lately, I have been visiting art galleries, having coffee with artists and buying a couple of their art pieces at a huge discount! I have visited the studio of one painter, and have seen works in progress, pieces that were completed, and the many themes that connect them.

One thing I have sensed is this artist’s devotion to her art, as her eyes sparkled about every work in progress. I have sensed more. Surely driven by passion and a great reservoir of energy, this painter is methodical. Truly, there is method in art!

This book began with an ambitious plan to begin and stretch the analogy of leader as artist. The structure of every chapter is, first, there is discussion of a featured artist’s intentions, circumstances and his act of “creation.”

This is followed by a discussion on one aspect of leadership —the artist illuminating the leadership quality, and the leadership discussion that further illuminates the artist or his/her work.

The chapters are: “Intent: Leadership Begins in the Mind,” Focus: Emphasizing the Center of Attention,” “Skill: If You Are Incapable of Doing It, It Can’t Be Done,” “Form: Putting It All Together,” Representation: Many Ways to Say Things,” “Imagination: Social Constructions and the Land of Make Believe;”

“Authenticity: Genuine Creations,” Engagement: The Curious Culture;” “Pleasure: Emotional Nourishment and Personal Enrichment,” “Personal Significance: Why Art and Leadership Persist;”

“Context: Right Time, Place and Methods,” “Criticism: Take Me Seriously Please,” “Do We Really Not Care About Leadership?” and “Masters of Leadership.”

At the onset, they offered 12 Leadership Criteria, which are actually measures on the content of each chapter—like “Intent,” “Focus,” etc.

They went about explaining why they omitted two important elements in good leadership—Character and Results. Yet, while they are explaining this intentional oversight, they have convinced me and many other readers I suppose that Character and Results must come in as one of the major elements in great leadership. Many more authors on leadership will agree with our readers.

I recall one author on leadership, Bill Hybels, who said that in his recruitment of leaders, he initially looked for three qualities in this order: Competence, Character and Chemistry. Competence is skill-based, Character is about integrity, and Chemistry is about the leader’s ability to relate to all kinds of folks.

After a few months, Hybels changed the order of his Leadership  elements—Character first, Competence second and Chemistry third. Why? Using Competence as number one criterion, Hybels recruited someone who made everyone uneasy about leaving their valuables on the table. In other words, they doubted the man’s honesty. Based on that experience, Character assumed preeminent position among the qualities Hybels looked for.

Back to the book, it has contributed somehow to some aspects about leaders as artists.

I couldn’t agree more with the authors when they spoke of excellence as one preoccupation of a leader. Taking off from artist Claude Monet, the authors cited him for his lifelong devotion to excellence. Turning to leaders, they say: “If your purpose is to acquire power, enrich yourself and control a vast corporate empire, the skills you will need for success will be quite different than if your ultimate aims are sublime.”

“Framing the action” is another useful tip from artists. “One definition of both art and leadership is the distillation of chaos. It is an ability to choose the essential for presentation and eliminate the distractions,” they point out.

They are actually saying that the operations of an organization being led should be like the harmony achieved by the orchestra, where every musical note, melodic tone and movement. Transfixed to paintings, the authors did not consider other artistic fields.

The authors use artist Piet Mondrian, with his “Composition in Black and White,” to illustrate the need to put pieces together and to “visualize patterns through the clutter.” They underscore what other leadership authors say about the need to “simply”—and to see the pattern of a seemingly chaotic world from a distance. “Don’t miss the forest for the trees” has been a time-worn but still relevant advice.

In a paragraph with a subtitle “Meaning Is Everywhere,” the book says: “We are surrounded by the symbolic, as it’s our nature to find meaning in things. Much of what the leader does, then, is under microscopic scrutiny, they point out.

Implied is the advice that the leader must be true to himself, so that what he exudes is what he is whether communicated explicitly or symbolically. In due time, this legendary leader or that mythical champion will surround a person they admire.

The book advises that a leader, like the artist must also be in the details, to make sure of seamless execution. Is this an endorsement for micromanagement? No. A better illustration, then, is the “broken windows” policy of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

He instructed his people to fix every broken window in New York, because that will reflect on the city leader’s fidelity to get everything right, big or small. The Scriptures say much the same thing in a more aphoristic way: “He who is faithful in small things is expected to be faithful in bigger things.”

On the whole, the book has aspired to have a sustained analogy of the artist and the leader—and, in some ways, has achieved to illuminate certain elements of leadership that are downplayed or missed by other books on this popular topic.

In the area of seeing order in the midst of seeming chaos, this book has given valuable advice. In the sense of the leader having the artistic bent in creating something of value and the artist seeing his creation with its built-in harmony and understated passion, this book is valuable.

There are promises undelivered in the book, because the metaphorical energy flagged. Speaking of authenticity, the authors focused on the ill-advised tendency to commit fraud, to be a fake—when they could have a more categorical, positive and affirmative discussion on the value of being true to yourself, of having integrity —being genuine inside and out.

This book, nonetheless, is valuable because it has set off a discussion on the leader as an artist. Napoleon Bonaparte saw art in the formation of his troops. John F. Kennedy created a fabulous architecture of leadership called the modern-day Camelot.

Martin Luther King painted an arresting tapestry of his dream of an America where white little children and black little children can share a table together in joy and harmony. Nelson Mandela has a well-loved idea in his mind for many years, dreaming of an apartheid free Africa—and that painting transitioned from a work of art to a work of life!

To our readers, as you read the book from page to page, think of that painting that fired your imagination, that poetry that is pregnant with meaning, and that piece of classical music that moved you to tears. Then think of leaders in antiquity and in modern times and see if leadership is an art form, and leaders are artists masquerading as politicians. [email protected]