The beatles

In my leadership class, each person presents the leader that he or she admires. This is followed by (in the next class) two people who present a critique on that person as a leader. Today we concluded the critique on John Lennon as a leader. Other leaders that they talked about were Micheal Jackson, Jesus Christ, Alexander of Macedonia, etc.

But the Beatles got me thinking. The convergence of management and art is something that I have been thinking about for a while now. Last year in the leadership class there was a paper connecting leadership to the conductor of an orchestra (Mintzberg, H., -Nov1, 1998 HBR) That was quite an interesting approach. The conductor has no "POWER" over the orchestra, and he doesnt make them obey him.

The Beatles on the other hand, remind me of the power of a "band". If the conductor has a solitary influence over the orchestra, The Beatles worked together to create an impact... not among themselves but ont he world around them. Perhaps we are looking at the wrong picture? Maybe when mapping leadership, its wrong to look within the organization? If a music band can be an example of leadership, how can one look at the metaphor in management?

How about a small group of people coming together (not an organization that continues to grow into a mammoth), just a small group of people who know that they can make an impact. They would compose "songs" or projects. But these songs, once composed will have a life of their own, a significant part of the band will be focussed on making new songs, rather than on managing production lines of CDs for their existing songs. Am I rambling? I am sure there is an interesting metaphor there, I am not sure if I have actually written it well enough.