I Wrote a Forbes Article: 'Leadership Lessons from the Theatre'

I Wrote A Forbes Article On What Business Leaders Can Learn From Actors

Forbes released an article co-authored by yours truly alongside renowned Professor - Karl Moore called "The Director's Chair: Leadership Lessons from the Theatre". The article discusses the training actors go through and how it is valuable in a business leadership context. It serves to bridge the worlds of rationality and creativity by instructing business leaders on emotional intelligence, improvisation and empathy - all topics covered in theatrical training. 

It has been well received by the public including comments by Outlier's author, Malcolm Gladwell; Gabriel Macht or "Harvey Specter" from the USA favourite "Suits" TV series; academic and author Henry Mintzberg and many more.

Actors Can Teach Business Leaders A Couple of Things

While entering the corporate world, I often found my background in television to be perplexing to hiring managers. The arts is a space, in which most business people often think is too different than their own whereas the human condition is the study of actors - a psychology that all leaders need to be successful.

In the article, Karl Moore and I describe a few key lessons actors can teach business leaders.

Improvisation

As described, In the world of live theater, the pressure to deliver lines perfectly can be quite extreme. Nevertheless, film actors often use improvisational skills to bring more life to their characters and lose themselves in their roles. Excellent leaders must know how to be thrown many different obstacles and improvise appropriately.

Leading With EQ and Beyond IQ

A large part of an actor’s training is building an understanding of their character, their desires, their main obstacle, and the action taken in order to reach their objective. When breaking down a character, an actor must ask themselves certain questions to successfully understand their character and world. Leaders can do the same by taking stock of their own goals, short- and long-term obstacles, and main motivations, of themselves and others.

Becoming a Leader

While each actor has a methodology that works for them, the most popular approach is the Stanislavski system. It stresses emotional memory and the art of internalization. Through a series of steps, actors can bring their characters to life, get inside their minds, and more generally, understand the human condition. Internalization means one will not fake his or her emotions when playing a part, but rather channel their own past memories and feelings to genuinely feel what their character feels.

Ultimately, the arts are important. The more we, as business people, seek the value of other fields and sources of knowledge, the more diverse we’ll be in our skillsets and ways of being. The world of ‘acting’ is a rich one.