JOURNAL OF LEADERSHIP STUDIES, Volume 3, Number 4, 2010©2010 University of Phoenix

Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) • DOI:10.1002/jls.20144 91

EMILY RODGERS, C. RANDALL BRADLEY, AND SHERRY WARD

POETIC FORMS OF LEADERSHIP PEDAGOGY

Rediscovering Creative Leadership Through the Arts

For many years it seems the larger leadership commu-nity assumed that leadership must be taught and devel-oped through venues such as business, education,political science, and other “routinized” areas focusedspecifically on leadership development. However, as lead-ership has been considered increasingly as an “art” and al-ternative models of leadership such as service leadership,adaptive leadership, and collaborative leadership aresought and valued, it makes sense to turn to the realm offine art for fresh leadership models and ideas. Participa-tion in the arts (both visual and performing) can offerfertile ground for developing leadership; however, thosewho teach and work in the arts must be aware of therich opportunities for leadership development amongthemselves and those they guide if this poetic laboratoryis to have an impact on future discussions. Conductors,directors, painters, sculptors, and other artists must beginto view themselves as leaders, and they must pass theseleadership qualities along to others as well.

In composing this article, we draw on our own ex-periences as both students and teachers of the arts. Ournarratives coalesce to reveal several significant qualitiesof a leader that can be cultivated through participationin the more aesthetic disciplines. Randall offers a per-spective based on his experiences both as a student andas an instructor of music, Sherry reflects on the successof the students in the Entrepreneurship and Creative

Leadership Engaged Learning Group (ELG) at BaylorUniversity, and Emily draws from her background as apainter and student of art history. By reflecting on ourown histories, then, we will compose a more poetic lead-ership pedagogy.

Our Perspectives

THE MUSICAL EXPERIENCE: LEARNINGTO LISTEN

Randall’s first leadership experience occurred throughhis participation in the high school band. When he wasa rising junior, the band needed a new drum major. Hewas surprised when the band director came to him andsaid, “Randall, you are a fine leader, and you would begood for this position.” Prior to that time, Randall hadnever considered himself a leader, for the simple reasonthat he had never been elected to a class office, studentcouncil, or any other position that he viewed as that ofa leader. However, the discipline, hard work, ability torally others, motivational strategies, and positivity thatwere already evident in his youth were honed throughhis participation in music (specifically band) at thatstage in his life.

As a professional musician and teacher for the past30 years, developing leadership through fine art has beena significant lynchpin in Randall’s teaching methods.

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One must always keep in mind that leadership is an art, not a science. Effective management may be a science (although I have my doubts),

but effective leadership is purely an art. In this sense, leadership is moreakin to music, painting and poetry than it is to more routinized endeavors.

—Sample (2001, p. 18)

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As he conducts and teaches, he views his classes andmusical groups as leadership laboratories full of poten-tial leaders. He feels a responsibility to help these mu-sical participants develop as leaders through the examplehe sets, the shared leadership models he creates, and in-tentional mentoring of specific individuals. Many of hisformer students have returned to acknowledge the rolethat their participation in group musical activities playsin their current leadership in schools, companies, andnonprofits.

THE THEATRICAL EXPERIENCE:LEARNING TO DIRECT

Sherry’s narrative of leadership development begins withher years as a professor of theater arts. Having taughton the secondary and college levels, she has witnessedthe profound changes that take place in young peoplewho previously have little or no propensity toward lead-ership. Because theater training puts great emphasis onthe process of crafting a play in addition to the finalproduction, the opportunity for self-reflection is abun-dant. When harnessed for the purposes of teaching lead-ership, then, theater arts compel students to discoverpreviously hidden capabilities.

Through her experiences with the theater arts, Sherryhas been offered many opportunities to pursue the con-nections between the arts and leadership. Most recently,she participated in an academic initiative involvingboth faculty and administrators at her institution. To-gether, these individuals created a three-semester coursefor first-year students (an Engaged Learning Group)surrounding the themes of entrepreneurship and cre-ative leadership, using the theater arts as a vehicle forteaching students how to be innovative. As she devel-oped the curriculum, she found it challenging to focusher attention on creating leaders rather than perform-ers. The program was, by design, multidisciplinary, en-compassing a broad range of majors and interests.Working with students from many disciplines createdan even greater opportunity for faculty and adminis-trators to think nontraditionally about how to formatthe course in such a way that it would serve all of thestudents equally.

A few anecdotes from the second semester of this ex-perience offer interesting examples of how leadershipcan be developed through the theater arts. One of them

appears here, and others are discussed in conjunctionwith the six principles of poetic leadership later in thearticle. Sherry served as the head instructor for this sec-ond semester, which culminated in a 24-Hour PlayProject. In the course of twenty-four consecutive hours,students wrote, directed, and performed original shortplays for an audience of family and peers. This is adaunting task for any student, but particularly for stu-dents with little or no theater or artistic background.Sherry’s concern was that the math and business stu-dents would feel lost, confused, or simply indifferent.Her judgment of these “left-brained” students, how-ever, was unfounded.

The students volunteered for one of three roles:writer, actor, or director. Six groups were assigned atrandom during the first hour of the play project. Eachgroup contained two writers, three to four actors, andonly one director. To the great surprise of the faculty,a young man whom we will call “Sam” landed one ofthe coveted director positions. Sam had not spokenmuch through the course of the semester, and peoplewondered whether he would be capable of the neces-sary assertiveness. However, directing a play was ex-actly what Sam needed to bring his assertiveness tothe fore. His rehearsals were among the smoothest, ashe chose his words carefully before giving directionsto which the actors listened intently and executed effectively. Following the 24-Hour Play Project, Samregularly contributed to class discussion and volun-teered for committees. Through the venue of theaterarts, then, many students like Sam gained significantleadership skills and explored their potential as en-trepreneurs.

THE PAINTERLY EXPERIENCE: LEARNINGAUDACITY

Emily’s story begins with a lesson about painting that shelearned from none other than Sir Winston Churchill. Inhis book Painting as a Pastime (1948), Churchill writesextensively about the audacity that is needed for thosewho undertake the art of painting. One scenario standsout from the rest as being particularly formational in hisidentity as a painter:

At that moment the loud approaching sound of a

motor-car was heard in the drive. From this chariot

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there stepped swiftly and lightly none other than the

gifted wife of Sir John Lavery. ‘Painting! But what are

you hesitating about? Let me have a brush—the big

one.’ Splash into the turpentine, wallop into the blue

and white, frantic flourish on the palette—clean no

longer—and then several large fierce strokes and

slashes of blue on the absolutely cowering canvas. Any-

one could see that it would not hit back. . . . The can-

vas grinned in helplessness before me. The spell was

broken. The sickly inhibitions rolled away. I seized the

largest brush and fell upon my victim with Berserk fury.

I have never felt any awe of a canvas since [p. 17].

Although Churchill’s story and that of Sam, for ex-ample, are distanced by many miles and decades, theyshare in common a special theme: the conquering ofpersonal inhibitions for the sake of an artistic endeavor.Churchill’s combative language invokes days of fiercewar and struggle, desperation, and deliberation. The emotions he describes are not unlike those hemight have felt when he came to the rescue of theBritish Expeditionary Force after the First Battle of theAisne in 1914. Perhaps “Churchill the painter” was notso different from “Churchill the First Lord of the Ad-miralty.” In fact, these identities complemented andmerged with one another as Churchill advanced in lead-ership. We can’t help but wonder whether his audaciousleadership cultivated his audacious style of painting, orthe other way around.

To return to Emily’s experience as a painter, the en-vironments of her undergraduate studio art classes wereadaptive, collaborative, reflective, and audacious. Pro-fessors urged her, along with the other students, to ex-pand their minds and challenge conventional modes ofperceiving reality within a communal and creative con-text. Their weekly and monthly “critiques” were quitestrenuous and taught them to think about and exam-ine art strategically. Not only that, but they had to learnthe art of offering and receiving constructive criticism.This process was often difficult and even painful, butit gave them a capacity to take a seemingly impossibletask or improbable idea and translate it into somethingconcrete and powerful. As they continued to practicethese habits of reflection, adaptability, and collabora-tion, Emily and her fellow students began to emerge asleaders in their own right.

These skills continue to be cultivated in Emily’s time inthe studio. Unbeknownst to many, there is no such thingas a solitary artist. Even those painters who live reclusivelives and emerge once every 10 years to sell a painting ora sketch are never truly alone. On the contrary, they findthemselves constantly in the company of the greatpainters of the past who inform their creative genius; fam-ily and even mere acquaintances exert a powerful influ-ence on the mind and choices of an artist. Emily makesa habit of seeking out critics to look at her work before itis complete, monitoring reactions and making changesaccording to the purpose of the piece and the response itelicits in the viewer. She also keeps a journal as a recordof ideas, sketches, and color palettes. Making art is a graveresponsibility. When done well, a painting can exert atremendous amount of power over its viewers. This pres-ents an interesting challenge to the artist to conduct her-self well not only as a painter but as a leader.

The Principles of Poetic LeadershipEach of these narratives offers an example of how thearts can cultivate leaders of all kinds. What leadershipcharacteristics or principles, then, do musical, theatrical,and other artistic endeavors contribute to the field ofleadership education? What follows are some of themost significant, though certainly not all, of the pillarsof our creative or poetic leadership theory.

CREATIVE ENVIRONMENT

A creative environment is central to good leadership, andthe arts supply ample opportunities for exercising cre-ativity. In one setting, musicians may be challenged withhundreds of creative decisions, such as how loud or softto play, how quickly or slowly, phrase shape, emphasiswithin a line or text, desired sound of the instrument orvoice, and so on. All of these decisions are subtly ma-nipulated to form intricate moments of creative expres-sion. Painters and actors likewise are called on to makecreative decisions from moment to moment. These decisions are never simple or straightforward. A paintercan never say “Blue always goes next to red” just as anactor should never say “I will smile whenever I am onstage.” Learning to be an environmental anthropologistand a leader requires an understanding of the creativityof a particular culture and the ability to function com-fortably within it.

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COLLABORATION AND CONTINUOUSEVALUATION

Those who work in theater know the strenuousness ofan unforgiving deadline—tickets have been sold, cos-tumes must be complete, lines must be memorized—because at a specified date and time the audience willbe in their seats expecting a performance. Often, theonly hope that actors, directors, and crew members haveof meeting that deadline is found in collaboration. Sim-ilarly, most music is made through collaboration withothers. Although individual skill is certainly valued, it ismost highly prized for what it offers the group. Envi-ronments characterized by freedom of expression arethe healthiest and most productive. In the studio, thissense of freedom gives painters the confidence that theirideas are valuable (though not impervious to critique).Musicians, actors, directors, painters, and other leadersquickly learn that they never have all the answers; there-fore the best ideas of all who participate are required ifthe group is to achieve its highest potential.

All performance artists learn that a concert or show isnever perfect; it is simply what the group or individual of-fers in a specific time and place. Performances, like paint-ings, are always works in progress. Because of this ongoingquest for art that is bigger than any individual goal, musi-cians, actors, and painters continuously evaluate their prog-ress toward their shared aspirations. As mentionedpreviously, the real joy of being a performance artist isfound not in the production itself but in the process ofbringing the production to life. Through choral participa-tion, for example, musicians learn to offer and accept feed-back honestly. In rehearsals, students and directors togetheropenly evaluate the sounds that each section makes, listento recordings, and set goals for the next performance. Lead-ership grows out of honest feedback and deeply earnedtrust. Successful musical participation, theatrical perform-ance, and artistic creation possess these qualities as well.

MULTITASKING AND ADAPTABILITY

Musicians must be able to multitask in order to besuccessful. Singers attend to the mental and physicalacts of producing sounds, reading music, watching theconductor, and listening to those around them. Con-ductors gesture, communicate the score, read thegroup’s responses, remember errors to return to them,evaluate what is on the page against what they are

hearing, and much more. Painters rarely have the lux-ury of working on one painting at a time. Thus, theyare constantly switching from project to project try-ing to organize their thoughts and synthesize a scat-tered collection of ideas into a synthesized andcoherent piece of art. Actors and directors are unceas-ingly bombarded with myriad decisions as well. Man-aging multiple choices and tasks simultaneously is aninvaluable leadership trait. Indeed, leaders must learnto work in many spheres under varying degrees ofpressure in order to be effective.

Adaptability is also imperative for artists. Actors anddesigners in particular are often praised for versatilityas they demonstrate an ability to adapt to the require-ments of a script. The theater requires the artist to rein-vent himself constantly as each script has its own setting,list of characters, and overall theme. On closing night,an actress must erase the pages of dialogue she has mem-orized in order to create a blank slate for the next role.The designers and directors stand by as the technicianstake the set apart piece by piece, undoing weeks, worthof grueling work, only to leave an empty space for thenext set. Theater artists learn to invest themselves intheir work while maintaining a professional distancethat allows them to see their efforts completely decon-structed when the show is finished. In the same way,leaders must learn to see their work as an entity separatefrom themselves that is susceptible to judgment andcriticism; they must be willing to discard their ideas and start anew when necessary.

AUDACITY AND THE ABILITY TOPERFORM

Winston Churchill, like so many charismatic leadersbefore him, was a performer. This can be seen and heardin the dramatic way he approaches the canvas and inthe speeches he made before the House of Commonsand the Royal Navy and over the radio. His audacityfueled this thespian spirit and supplied the energy heneeded to carry out the many responsibilities that ac-companied his positions of leadership.

All good leaders must at some point be good per-formers; they must learn to suppress their individualemotions for the leadership task at hand. Early on,musicians learn to channel their emotions into pos-itive energy so they can perform effectively in front of

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large groups of people. Actors, by virtue of their vo-cation, perform daily. What great leader has not ex-perienced some anxiety when standing in front of agroup giving a keynote address or pitching a new ideathat could face controversy? Even Churchill had mo-ments of vulnerability and fear. Effective leaders learnto act their way into belief. There are times whenthey must not disclose all of their true feelings to thegroups for which they are responsible. At least for awhile, they must show what can or should be, ratherthan what is.

SELF-DISCIPLINE, SELF-AUTHORSHIP,AND SELF-REFLECTION

Leadership involves a high level of self-discipline. Goodleaders prepare well before meetings, they sometimessacrifice their own desires for the group, and they oftenwork before those whom they lead arrive and after theyhave gone home. Sam’s story, told previously, demon-strates this quite well. Successful directors, musicians,and painters learn the value of self-discipline very earlyin their career. They comprehend the need to spendtime alone, with themselves and their craft, before ex-posing it to the eye of the public. For painters, thebridge between inspiration and execution is self-reflection. Emily’s art professors required her to keepjournals not just for sketches and color palette recordsbut also for mental processing. Students were not per-mitted to paint simply what they felt like painting. Theyneeded a motive, a worthy inspiration, an idea that tran-scended themselves and could offer something mean-ingful to the world.

Leaders must also be willing to participate in the iso-lation necessary for being a public person. Althoughleadership is characterized by sometimes being in frontof people for long periods of time, truly great leader-ship is often forged in moments of self-reflection andstudy, or in collaboration with a small group or innercircle. Therefore leaders must spend time alone to un-dertake the work of self-authorship in order to be fullyfunctional in times of public leadership.

VULNERABILITY

Few better tools exist for teaching individuals to walkthe fine line between confidence and vulnerability thanfine art. Although a talented musician must believe

in his abilities strongly enough to offer them with con-fidence, his performance is always open to critique. Thisintroduces a strong sense of vulnerability, which can behandled graciously or ungraciously. The function ofbeing confident without succumbing to cockiness is aprinciple of all good leadership. To participate in thearts is to reveal oneself in a deeply personal way. For in-stance, to sing in front of an audience is to risk their re-jection of your own body—your voice. This willingnessto be vulnerable in front of others can come with greatcost. For a leader to bare her soul to others by sharingher passion and commitment to ideas is not unlike theprocess of music making. She must likewise be willingto undergo criticism and dissatisfaction without com-promising her core values or commitments and remainopen-minded to the comments of her colleagues andconstituents.

Conclusion: The Art of LeadershipGood art, whether a painting, theatrical production, ormusical presentation, helps us identify the gap betweenour aspirations and reality. This is how Ronald Heifetzdescribes adaptive leadership in Leadership Without EasyAnswers (1994). The “gap” is an adaptive challenge inwhich neither the problem nor the solution is easily de-finable. Heifetz states that the four principles of strate-gic leadership are to identify the adaptive challenge,regulate the level of distress caused by confronting themain issues, keep attention focused on the right things,and devise a strategy for shifting responsibility from theproblem itself onto those most invested in the problem.To accomplish these tasks well requires not only anadaptive effort but a creative, collaborative, reflective,disciplined, audacious, and ultimately poetic effort onthe part of the leader.

The authority with which Sir Winston Churchill approached his canvas exhibits many (if not all) ofthese leadership traits as well. He identified the chal-lenge before him, namely, the blank canvas. He regu-lated his own stress by confronting the issue, focusedhis attention, and shifted the authority away fromempty painting and onto himself. This is the battlethat many artists fight when confronted with a whitecanvas, an unmarked script, or a new piece of music.True success consists in engaging in the process poet-ically by integrating the characteristics described here.

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When the arts are undertaken deliberately, they offertraining in the “art” of leadership. All artists are lead-ers, and all leaders are artists. By adopting and cultivat-ing methods of creative leadership such as collaborationand evaluation, adaptability and audacity, those whooperate in an environment where both the problem andthe solution are complex and obscure will be betterequipped to face the challenges of leadership and helpothers translate aspirations into reality.

ReferencesChurchill, W. S. (1948). Painting as a pastime. London: OdhamsPress, Long Acre & Ernest Benn.

Heifetz, R. A. (1994). Leadership without easy answers. Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press.

Sample, S. (2001). The contrarian’s guide to leadership. San Fran-cisco: Jossey-Bass.

Emily L. Rodgers is a graduate student of higher educa-tion and student affairs and the program director for theGlobal Community Living-Learning Center at BaylorUniversity. She earned a BA from Baylor in 2008. Shecan be reached at Emily_Rodgers@baylor.edu.

C. Randall Bradley is the Ben H. Williams Professor ofMusic and director of the church music program and theCenter for Christian Music Studies at Baylor University.He holds degrees from Troy University (BME) and South-western Theological Seminary (MM, DMA). He can bereached at Randall_Bradley@ baylor.edu.

Sherry Ward is a lecturer in Baylor University’s Depart-ment of Theatre Arts. Ward received her master’s of finearts in theatre management from the University of Alabama/Alabama Shakespeare Festival. She can bereached at Sherry_Ward@baylor.edu.