I’ve long treated leadership as a performance art. Like other active, social, emotional, expressive, performance-based fields, we learn to practice it by practicing the basics. My book Leadership Step by Step (also Initiative) give you exercises that if you practice them, you’ll learn to lead effectively.
Practicing exercises works in leadership the way practicing scales works in playing musical instruments and practicing ground strokes works in playing tennis. Do the reps, get the results. Don’t do the reps, don’t get the results.
Someone recently talked about how kids learn: they play. Playing sports, playing house, and so on develop skills. Kids playing are kids practicing exercises. Not only humans, most mammals and many non-mammal animals too.
If you play enough, you may develop mastery. From the body’s and mind’s experience, someone playing and someone practicing an exercise may be functionally equivalent, but may give people different views on them.
I’m thinking about developing a frame from which to view leadership as something to play, like a team sport. Then it wouldn’t be like a team sport. It would be a team sport.
Framing leadership as a game to play with others may make it more appealing to learn and practice for the long run. I already don’t feel leadership as work but as play. I think many people would benefit from the framing.
Stay tuned.
