I just got my copies of the summer 2017 edition of the Leader to Leader Journal, published by the Frances Hesselbein Leadership Institute (formerly named for Peter Drucker). The journal is a many-times winner of the APEX award for publication excellence.

In other words, it’s prestigious.

My article, “Leadership Step by Step,” is on page 25.

Here are some scans to whet your appetite:

• 

• 

• 

• 

To whet your appetite more, the article begins

---

The movie The Iron Lady shows an acting coach teach Margaret Thatcher to speak, dress, and act more like a leader. Some may have dismissed such training as superficial. I suggest such training was not only critical in making her one of the twentieth century’s most important leaders, but that aspiring leaders should do far more of it.

The reason, though, has little to do with the sound of her voice.

We Learn By Doing

You probably know the punchline about the lost tourist who asked a New Yorker how to get to Carnegie Hall: “Practice, practice, practice!” We students of leadership could learn from it.

The punchline is funny because we know that practice is the best and only way to master musical performance. It wouldn’t work if the New Yorker said “listen to lectures on music theory,” “read the latest research,” or “discuss case studies on Bach.”

Some fields we can learn through traditional academic techniques, but not playing music. We teach playing music with basic exercises like scales, then intermediate exercises, then advanced. Instead of a teacher lecturing theory at the student, students learn both theory and practice by practicing. There is a lot of theory in scales—they aren’t randomly hitting keys. Music teachers are seasoned masters, not academics. Most of all, the more you practice, the more you learn.

Read the rest at the Leader to Leader Journal.

Special thanks to Frances Hesselbein, the journal’s Editor-in-Chief, Bruce Rosenstein, its Managing Editor, and Theresa Berenato of the Hesselbein Institute.