What Rock Stars Can Teach Leaders

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The ability to see oneself in action and to adjust as one goes along is fundamental to the extraordinary stage presence of artists as diverse as Simon, Clapton, Bette Midler, and Bruce Springsteen.

Clapton, Simon, and dozens of other outstanding performers and leaders I've studied have discovered how they learn best and how that learning can fuel their growth. In my book Crucibles of Leadership, I refer to this as a Personal Learning Strategy—a highly effective combination of aspiration, a deep understanding of personal motivation, and a keen insight into one's own learning style.

A Personal Learning Strategy is not just a handful of maxims or homilies about what makes a great leader or an eminent performer. Rather, it's the product of deep reflection on what one truly wants to accomplish that's translated into a guide to individual practice. But aspiration is not enough. It's essential to also draw the curtains back on one's own motivations: What's necessary for me to stick with something, even when the drudgery of practice seems to offer no immediate improvement?

And, finally, there's the question of how you actually incorporate new ideas and ways of doing things into your persona. Especially important is how you convert experience—particularly times of trial and adversity that call into question closely held truths—into insight about what it takes to learn and grow

Learning from Your Crisis

In commenting on his autobiography, Clapton conceded that he grappled with writing about aspects of his life—in particular, his addictions and the loss of his son—but realized readers would want to know how he survived and how those experiences shaped his music. Clapton's crucible stories contain revelations shared by leaders who have found themselves challenged by blocked opportunities and hounded by tragedies.

Highly regarded business leaders such as Muriel Siebert, who become the first woman to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, and Jeff Wilke, senior vice-president at Amazon.com (AMZN), who had to learn to help heal a factory community in the wake of an industrial accident, used their crucibles to fashion an approach to leadership that places the willingness to learn at its core. They found a way in which adversity could make them more effective learners for the rest of their lives.

Flexibility and adaptive capacity are important to rock stars and leaders in another way: Without the willingness to grow and learn, both are likely to find themselves left behind. It is one thing to produce a successful album or organization, but it's quite another to keep up with an evolving genre, with technology, or with audience taste without sacrificing personal integrity. Great performers and leaders retain familiar refrains and signature sounds that provide continuity, even while they incorporate new rhythms and messages.

Finally, there's the paradoxical leadership lesson to be learned from performers as young as Alicia Keys and as weathered as Neil Young: the power of silence. Silence can create anticipation, it can stir the imagination, it can provide a chance to breathe and reflect, and, as artists like Keys and Young have described, it can bring out the best in a performer. Next time you see them perform, notice how they keep the audience waiting and build their expectations. Notice, too, how the audience's anticipation encourages the performers to raise their level of play. In that silence lies a powerful understanding of others and of oneself—an understanding that grows rather than diminishes with time.

Robert J. Thomas is executive director of the Accenture Institute for High Performance Business based in Boston and the John R. Galvin Professor of Leadership at the Fletcher School of International Affairs at Tufts University. He writes, teaches, and consults about leadership and transformational change. His newest book, Crucibles of Leadership: How to Learn from Experience to Be a Great Leader, has been hailed by Harvard's Rosabeth Kanter as "a guide for aspiring leaders in all walks of life" and by Wharton's Mike Useem as "an organizational playbook for transforming managers into leaders." .