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Why You Should Be Reading More Books on Leadership than Books on Music...

​The way I grew up, I should have ended up in prison or dead but music saved my life. It offered me a place to go outside of my house. I could jump into a piece of music and be someone else, somewhere else, and there would be no screaming, cussing, hitting, or fighting.

Every music teacher has a student that disrupts the class because of either talking or laughing. That student was me. I laughed so much when I should have been either following along, listening, or singing, that senior students asked our choir teacher to kick me out. The truth was that choir, compared with my house, was the happiest place on earth. Where my parents lived was my house, but choir was my home. How could I not laugh so much? It was one of the few places I could actually feel such joy. Also, I could get these goosebumps when my voice would match with those in the choir and sometimes, these chords, oh these chords would just wreck me. My senior year in high school, I was elected (by the Grace of God since my behavior in choir was something atrocious) to be the Choir President. During the summer, I had heard about this "Leadership Summit" through my church and something pulled me towards it. For a few days, I would attend the Simulcast Global Leadership Summit at my church in the morning and then head to our Choir Car Wash Fundraisers for our tour that year. That Summit changed my life because I finally learned that there was dialogue to this thing called Leadership and it was the most important thing I could invest my time in because, as Willow Creek Pastor Bill Hybels has said at the Leadership Summit, "Everyone wins when a leader gets better."

If you are a teacher, you are a leader. The question is are you a good leader or a poor leader? We should be reading on leading more than on music because we know far more about music. We have been formally trained in music. I am not saying that you should not spend time learning about musical things. As far as score study, like Leonard Bernstein, I believe that the conductor must not only know the score, but he or she must be that score incarnate. You can know how to analyze a band, choir or orchestral piece to the standards of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, but can you effectively lead those who will perform it?

Do you have section leaders? Do you have a President and Vice President? Do you have a Student Conductor? Let me go a bit deeper with you. Are you afraid to have these positions because of your own insecurities? Far too many music teachers are, themselves, the President-Vice President-Conductor-Treasurer-Librarian-Manager-Accompanist. The students become robots that can do the music the way they have rehearsed but they still are just employees, not owners. See, what you should want is for the students to become owners; to ask the questions that you ask; to make both musical and organizational decisions; to hold themselves to their own standards; to keep each other accountable with their music accuracy and their attention; to care deeply about the people they sing with and to personally want to affect the lives of those who they share the music with.

You've heard it said that you shouldn't take things personally. I believe that the goal with students is to create the contrary: Take the music personally. Take the rhythms you perform personally. Take your pitches personally. Take your intonation personally. Take your vowels personally. Take your tone personally. Take your breathing personally. Take your technique personally. Take your blend personally. Take getting-it-right personally. All of these things are skills taught through Leadership and the majority of which are not taught in college or at conventions.

You must take the time to read specifically about leadership, listen to speakers on leadership, attend seminars or conventions on leadership. Simply put, you must make Leadership a priority as you are mapping out your year, no matter what age you teach. Even in elementary I remember the leaders of certain classes and leaders in different sports. But as for me, everything that I learned about Leadership has been either learned or practiced in music and has changed the way in which I live my life. So, knowing that, it is important to due diligence on the subject and be committed to being a better leader, and teaching your students to be the best leaders in whatever they do in life. So Lead Them.

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