Leadership & the Art of Fugue

No machine has been designed to accurately count the number of books on leadership emerging each week. So, with a deep desire to proliferate with the rest of them I thought I’d see how easy it was to write (aka ‘make stuff up’) about leadership from Johann Sebastian Bach’s fugues, for instance the Fugue in G Minor, BWV 578. In a gathering of your Mozarts and Beethovens, along with lesser lights like Brahms and Puccini, when JS Bach walks into the room everybody else stands up. He is the master. So go and listen to a JS Bach fugue, then read on for a thesis in fugal leadership, set to become the next big thing:

1. Somebody has to go first

Leadership has never been about following. Exposed, alone the fugue begins with one voice, often in the right hand, rarely in the pedals. The leader takes the idea public and experiences the thrill and vulnerability of being that voice. Richard Branson runs in the room with ‘I believe I can fly, I believe I can touch the sky’, James Dyson declares ‘this really sucks.’ The leader articulates the vision, the leader goes first, the fugue begins somewhere.

2. If your vision is inspired it will come back at you

‘Nobody understands me’ generally means you’re an idiot. A well articulated and inspiring vision will normally be re-voiced in your direction by trusted friends and leadership teams. They know that they’re going to be on this tune for some time, and it won’t come back with added value if it’s nonsense – it will be an embarrassing solo. In BWV 578, as in all fugues, it comes back identically but in a different key, the personality of the second and third voices allowed to re-voice the tune. The fugue underscores the value of ownership, corporate clarity and vision development; the leader lets go, the church or organisation holds on and to a degree reworks the vision.

3. Leadership sets the tone

Now go and listen to the Fugue in G major BWV 577. It’s called the ‘Gigue’ Fugue and is one of the happiest pieces Johann Sebastian Bach ever composed; the sun shone on Weimar when he wrote it, we had it on our wedding day. The happiness pervades from the very first phrase. Don’t be miserable on my watch; leadership (the first voice) sets the tone.

4. Everybody needs to get it

There is a moment in the exposition of a fugue when the hands, the manuals, are sharing the theme, normally in 3 parts; but something is missing, the feet. The moment the feet take up the tune this much is clear, everybody gets it; the whole organ(isation) is on board. Bill George of Harvard Business School talks of leadership ‘aligning people, or bringing them together around a common mission and a common set of values.’  The Fugue is a master-class in alignment. In the D-major fugue BWV 532 the repetitive complexity of the theme begs the question ‘will everybody ever get this?’ Then the pedals come in in bar 20, yes even the pedals get it, everybody gets it.

5. Leaders refresh and repeat vision

After the opening section of any fugue you’ll hear the developmental, conversational Bach, sometimes leading the fugue to a new key, sometimes there will be counter-melodies, but always the initial theme will return holding everything together. Clarity and security through repetition. After a year or so Christ’s disciples must have been entirely unsurprised when he started talking yet again about ‘the Kingdom of Heaven’. In one of his final recorded conversations with a perplexed Pilate he is still revisiting His life’s work, His death’s work, with the words ‘my kingdom is not of this world.’ (John 18:36) Listen out for a final (pedal) articulation of the theme in all Bach’s fugues. The theme is what it’s about, and always will be.

6. Leaders point with enthusiasm to the next chapter

The leader needs to signal when an organisational phase or period is coming to an end and a new beginning is coming. Take the Toccata& Fugue in D minor BWV 565 – yes the really famous one. As it gets near to the end of its 10 minutes it’s clearly ending, but when Bach throws in a Bb major chord in the final bars it’s clear that there is absolutely no loss of creative energy or imagination, and we can be excited about the next chapter. Things end, life doesn’t, and leadership points to new life.

7. Soli Deo Gloria

Even the dimmest student of history, and I count myself among them, can see with ease that leadership can be used destructively and calamitously. Humanity is diminished by unconsecrated leadership. Interestingly JS Bach’s fugues don’t end with a chord, they all end with three letters, S.D.G., Soli Deo Gloria, alone to God’s glory. You’ll find the same letters at the end of Handel’s Messiah. We lead for others, we lead for God, or we lead badly.

So that’s my thesis for now. I'm expecting to be flown to conferences to speak on fugal leadership principles, first class travel and a nice hotel to tell people what the writer to Ecclesiastes has already said: there is nothing new under the sun. JS Bach got there first.