On Leading
Oct. 2nd, 2004 10:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
plumtreeblossomI’ve been thinking a lot about the new experience I’m having in leadership as Chorus Captain for the show, studying and analyzing how the experience affects me and how I respond.
This is very new to me, the position of leadership within a work group. Although I have always been comfortable as a social leader and frequently slide into the social Alpha role without conscious effort, official and/or designated leadership of a working group is alien territory. In evaluating why this is so, I can identify a lifelong pattern of avoidance in regard to leadership in working collaborations as well as in intimate relationships.
In artistic/creative pursuits, I have always chosen either solitary art forms (writing, one-woman shows, crafts) or group collaborations that had a defined leader other than me (community theatre, bands with a leader). Gathering people’s energy and actions into one streamlined force to a creative end has always been someone else’s job, or so I’ve always ensured one way or another.
Truth be told, my role in these groups has always been the counterweight to the leader; I've always been the one the leader needed to snap at to be quiet or to pay attention –- the class clown, the voice of dissent, and in my earliest adult years, sometimes the bona fide Bad Apple. I started mutinies, argued every point, and generally held progress back for reasons that are lost to me now. Until age 30 or so, I was seldom cast twice by the same director. By then I had figured out why.
At Wednesday’s rehearsal I called a short break at the usual time and found myself outside talking about this with Gilly and Jude. I expressed my fear about seeming bossy or controlling, fear of ignoring someone’s input or dominating the creative flow. They both emphasized without hesitation that (and I paraphrase) the group members want to be led, and need control in order to function. The text must be moved from page to stage, it is my job to facilitate that, and a certain level of control is required if it is to happen. With that in mind, I went back in and led to the best of my ability. It still feels deeply alien, but I do think this is particularly good for me as a conduit to releasing strengths I didn’t know I possessed.
I said in an e-mail to Benjamin that it’s as if Elizabeth trusts me to be just the right Mad Scientist to bring this monster to life. And the Chorus text is a Monster, make no mistake about that. I don’t in my heart believe she would have entrusted this to me if she had misgivings about my ability to do it – there were many others she could have asked. And so, in trusting her faith, I must also trust my own strength and decisions, as well as my ability to fill this need.
This is very new to me, the position of leadership within a work group. Although I have always been comfortable as a social leader and frequently slide into the social Alpha role without conscious effort, official and/or designated leadership of a working group is alien territory. In evaluating why this is so, I can identify a lifelong pattern of avoidance in regard to leadership in working collaborations as well as in intimate relationships.
In artistic/creative pursuits, I have always chosen either solitary art forms (writing, one-woman shows, crafts) or group collaborations that had a defined leader other than me (community theatre, bands with a leader). Gathering people’s energy and actions into one streamlined force to a creative end has always been someone else’s job, or so I’ve always ensured one way or another.
Truth be told, my role in these groups has always been the counterweight to the leader; I've always been the one the leader needed to snap at to be quiet or to pay attention –- the class clown, the voice of dissent, and in my earliest adult years, sometimes the bona fide Bad Apple. I started mutinies, argued every point, and generally held progress back for reasons that are lost to me now. Until age 30 or so, I was seldom cast twice by the same director. By then I had figured out why.
At Wednesday’s rehearsal I called a short break at the usual time and found myself outside talking about this with Gilly and Jude. I expressed my fear about seeming bossy or controlling, fear of ignoring someone’s input or dominating the creative flow. They both emphasized without hesitation that (and I paraphrase) the group members want to be led, and need control in order to function. The text must be moved from page to stage, it is my job to facilitate that, and a certain level of control is required if it is to happen. With that in mind, I went back in and led to the best of my ability. It still feels deeply alien, but I do think this is particularly good for me as a conduit to releasing strengths I didn’t know I possessed.
I said in an e-mail to Benjamin that it’s as if Elizabeth trusts me to be just the right Mad Scientist to bring this monster to life. And the Chorus text is a Monster, make no mistake about that. I don’t in my heart believe she would have entrusted this to me if she had misgivings about my ability to do it – there were many others she could have asked. And so, in trusting her faith, I must also trust my own strength and decisions, as well as my ability to fill this need.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-02 10:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-03 07:17 am (UTC)