Dancing and improvisation theatre should be mandatory classes for leadership and management schools. Core modules for MBAs. Perhaps it would help us as a society move out of thinking leadership and management is an assembly line on which we need to pull levers and x + y = z. Perhaps it will move us away from looking for templates to success and towards an embrace of who we are. Human.

This is not to say we can not and should not learn from others. It is more that we need to move from rigidly applying templates. We very rarely operate in a vacuum environment where we can control all factors. In reality, we operate in ever changing environments which we need to get to know, to feel, and trust so that we can create a dance or a story. So we can create beauty and art. Whatever that art may be – a story, a product, a service, a vaccine, and so on.

We create beauty not by rigidly applying our opinions on others through force or control. Beauty is the act of creating a way forward together where all parties bring opinions together and they all change.

You can’t be a good dancer or improv artist when you are rigid. The same applies to leadership and management. Some of us need to learn to dance with our imposter, others with our colleagues and teams.

It’s time to choose a dance partner. And yes, becoming a good dancer takes practice, so get up and dance.

Photo by Rainier Ridao