We are in service to the people we lead, but we can't do everything for them. When we try to take responsibility away from people, we ignore the fact that the people require an innate sense of agency, purpose, and ownership. What if we aim to help musicians to serve themselves in this way?

We’ve all heard the saying “Great minds think alike.” A couple weeks ago, someone challenged that thought for me. That person said that great minds actually should not think alike. When we all think alike, we end up with conformity and a lack of diversity in ideas or perspectives. So why do we all want to be alike?

As conductors in rehearsals, it is so easy to be lost in ourselves. We forget that musicians are people too and not machines that simply execute what we tell them to do. When we are dealing with people, all roads seem to lead to empathy. I share 4 ways I am personally trying to exercise more empathy in rehearsals.

Risk is when the outcome is uncertain. It's safer within certainty, so we avoid taking risks. In this post, I consider disassociating outcome with decision via the work of former professional poker player Annie Duke. Does a good outcome necessarily mean you made a good decision?

I ponder on what Marshall Goldsmith says about our environment, "It either helps us be the person we want to be or it prevents us.” What's encouraging us to do the wrong thing?And what's discouraging us from doing the right thing?

In addition to being artists, conductors put on 4 other hats as a leader: 1) marketer, 2) negotiator, 3) motivational speaker, 4) coach. And the opportunity to wear all these hats to serve musicians can be truly exciting and fulfilling.

Why did you get hooked on music? We can all answer that question. Who are you doing it for? Perhaps not as easy. In a study of over 30,000 people, construction workers rose to the top as the happiest employees. What made that so? And how can we use that to help us?

As musicians, we have goals built-in for us. When we have a performance that didn't go as well, we are disappointed because we think we've failed that goal. We worked hard but missed the mark. It feels all or nothing. I examine how we fail to study growth trends of our work and overlook using it as a tool for evaluation.

Career development has traditionally been defined by promotions and acquisitions of titles. They represent simply one dimension of how we can grow in our careers, yet it is the only dimension that matters to many of us. The research of Julie Winkle Giulioni revealed 7 other dimensions "that offer more interesting ways for employees to grow than the classic climb up the corporate ladder."

As leaders, we are always hoping to gain new skills, learn new ideas, and try on different mindsets. We keep adding items to our "should-do" lists to become a better leader. What are the things that we could stop doing? Here are 4 things on my "stop doing" list.

We are lucky to get to do what we love for a living. The intended positive effects of that thought are only truly realized when it is reciprocated by our organizations - when they show us that they are lucky to have us.

We can always strive to be better at how we ask our musicians for their opinion. I share four guidelines to help us be more intentional. New habits will form with practice. It will begin to feel less awkward, less uncomfortable. Soon enough, it will become just "the way we do things around here" and part of your culture.

When we think about autonomy, what comes to mind is work from home and flexible hours. Well, that's not going to work for orchestras. So is workplace autonomy simply impossible for the orchestra industry? I first take a look at what autonomy really means. Then. I share some ideas on where else we might be able to insert more autonomy beyond the "where" and "when."

We've all heard "change is hard" and "change is uncomfortable." But sometimes, we don't even get started because we don't think we can change. I bring in Carol Dweck's idea of growth and fixed mindsets. And I share some thoughts about why we don't think we can change. And I end with some questions we can ask ourselves to help us believe we can.

I learned that feeling valued at work is truly one of the most important things we can both cultivate as employers and demand as employees. I share how much of my career led me to feeling not valued in work. Get the money right is #1. I follow with 9 additional ways we can help musicians feel more valued at work beyond money.

An alternative to feedback is feedforward, an idea I first heard from Marshall Goldsmith a couple years ago. In this post, I share what feedforward is and 1) how it helps us be future-oriented, why it works, how I used it as a rehearsal technique with my orchestra at Oberlin, and how it surprised me when I used it.

As musicians, what are our goals? For an orchestra, what are its goals? If you think about it, we enjoy our work the most in the company of others - whether it is the musicians sharing the stage with us or the audiences listening to us. I share what might be our actual goals and how we can frame our tangible goals around them.

The main thing that held me back from being a leader was simply not having a title. This lack of a title made me second guess my thoughts and resist my drive to take action. I found myself in limbo…simply waiting for "when.” I've learned that we can all be leaders regardless of our status and rank, and even without a title. I share 4 practices I've tried to help me overcome my tendency to wait.

Like most high-achieving leaders, I'm tempted to phrase compliments like this, "Great job, but it would be better if you did X, Y, and Z” Executive coach Marshall Goldsmith calls this "adding too much value," and he says this habit can backfire for leaders. I share how and what we can do about it.

"The Spurs don’t succeed because they are good at basketball. They succeed because they are skilled at a far more important sport: building strong relationships.” I share, via Daniel Coyle's work, 5 ways we can signal belonging.