“Each employee is highly skilled and has their own vision of what they want to achieve—and each vision is valid. As a leader, how do you keep these people engaged and prevent the onset of anarchy?” writes Fiona Smith in Wednesday’s (10/16) The Press (Christchurch, New Zealand). “Three orchestra conductors were recently interviewed … about how they managed to get the best from their musicians, without crushing their creativity. British conductor Christopher Seaman … says, ‘What you most want from a conductor is leadership, not dictatorship.’… Seaman says good conductors make musicians want to do things the conductor’s way. ‘You need to somehow hook into the orchestra’s desire for excellence and you need to make it a desire for your kind of excellence.’ … Associate conductor at Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Benjamin Northey, says … ‘I’ve heard it said before that some music needs one mind, for better or worse, and the conductor has that responsibility.’ … English conductor Nicholas Braithwaite says that exciting performances require risk-taking…. Some orchestras have rejected the leader-led model—most famously the Grammy-award winning Orpheus [Chamber] Orchestra in the U.S., which has no conductor at all … [and] is often used as an example of how organizations can use collaboration and consensus-building to settle creative differences.”
Posted October 18, 2013
