Leadership as artistry

In a second, I’m going to suggest that leadership can be considered artistry. But first, what is an artist?

I’ve been thinking non-stop about this take from the comedian, writer, and producer Hasan Minhaj.

Here’s a clip (link to Instagram Reel) from his appearance on the Colin and Samir podcast (heads up: there’s some profane language in the clip). Here’s a key blurb:

It’s artistry vs. the algorithm…An artist is someone who has something in their head or their heart that they gotta SAY. And they want to get it out - that’s an artist. I have to get this out into the world. You’ve got a short film? Let’s show it in the park TONIGHT.

I love this framing: an artist has something to say. They have a point of view that they have to share out into the world.

And then there’s the algorithm. Serving the algorithm is not expressing a point of view, it’s putting something out based on whether other people will like it. Whether other people will click it. Whether other people will buy it. You’re not serving up a point of view, you’re serving up something that optimizes some variable.

Like Minaj says in the clip, I’m not trying to be disparaging about living by the algorithm or pejorative. Choosing artistry over the algorithm (or vice versa) isn’t necessarily better…but it is a choice.

Is leadership artistry? I know it can be, because I’ve seen leaders communicating a point of view through their leadership. I’ve seen leaders who have something in their heart that they’ve got to say. A recent example I’ve encountered is Alan Mullaly’s interview (he’s a former Boeing and Ford CEO) on The Knowledge Project podcast.

The entire interview is worth listening to, but I’d summarize Mullaly’s point of view on leadership with his phrase “love by design.” It’s clear that his whole worldview on leadership - from the language he uses, to his framework of key ideas, to the management operating system he uses to manage the process of leading a team - all come down to loving and serving others.

Mullaly has a point of view, that he needs to communicate. He’s an artist. His medium just happens to be leadership.

I’ve found that many successful leaders I’ve observed also express a unique, personal, cohesive point of view through their leadership.

Like a colleague of mine who’s one of the founders of Joybird furniture: his point of view, which I learned within an hour of meeting him, is to create growth - for people, for enterprises, and for customers.

Or there’s Reese Witherspoon, whose entrepreneurship founding Hello Sunshine centers around the importance of telling stories that celebrate women and puts them at the center of the story.

Or there’s former Joint Chiefs Chairman and Secretary of State Colin Powell whose point of view centers on solving problems and taking care of people. When I was an intern at the State Department, I heard personal tales from my colleagues about Secretary Powell embodying this through behaviors like eating in the canteen with everybody else or personally seeking out the families of personnel who died or were injured in action and finding ways to help them.

Of course, the alternative to leadership as artistry is leadership by algorithm.

We can do what makes the most money with the lowest risk. We can do what optimizes for a social metric. We can do what gets us promoted the fastest. We can copy the generic management system we learn in graduate school. Whatever variable we choose, there’s there’s a leadership algorithm to optimize for it.

Leadership by algorithm is a legitimate choice, and maybe even the right one for the circumstances. And just like on social media, playing to the algorithm works if you do it well enough.

But like Minhaj opined in the clip above - leadership by algorithm may work well, I just don’t want to live like that.

In my experience and study of organizations and leaders for the past 25 years, algorithmic leadership has consequences I’m not willing accept.

Just like social media, algorithmic leadership leads to “inflammatory content” like when ego-maniacal leaders develop cult followings with their extreme tactics.

Just like social media, algorithmic leadership leads to “content mediocrity” - like when the leadership quality of the entire cadre of listless middle-level managers in the world seems to mirror the endless supply of mediocre cat videos on the internet.

Leadership by algorithm can work, but it has consequences.

Behavior Is communication

The hard part, as is usually the case, is the “how.” How do we actually do this? How do we actually develop a point of view that we can express through how we lead?

Robyn, my wife, recently shared a concept she learned during her training to become a high school teacher: behavior is communication. In the education (or parenting) context, the lesson is simple: when kids are acting out, they’re actually trying to say something that they aren’t capable of expressing in words. Their behavior is communication.

If we want to think of our leadership as artistry, we can apply the same lesson. Our behaviors - when we’re trying to lead a team or make a positive contribution - say something. The beliefs we have in our hearts are represented in how we act. Our point of view is reflected in how we operate.

Just like artists can express a point of view with their scripts, paintings, or music - we can express a point of view with how we behave in the organizational world.

If we want to think of our leadership as artistry with a point of view, we first have to explore and try new things. We have to listen and observe. We have to hone the fundamentals of our craft - like communicating, being authentic, delegating, and more. And then, we have to reflect, and do deep introspection about what we’ve experienced and form a point of view.

That practice of introspection can take many forms, but I think this question is as good as any to start: when I try to behave in a context of leadership and organizations, what am I trying to say? What am I trying to communicate, from deep within my heart, through my behavior?

If we explore as artists do and introspect as artists do, we can practice leadership as artistry.

Photo Credit: Unsplash @timmossholder