Someone once said that art ought not to tread upon the mortal soil but stay in heavens, its eternal abode. However, it turns out that what art can offer us is often very practical.

Check out: 4 Great Leadership Lessons from the Arts

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Glossary

• endeavor – an enterprise or undertaking
• anecdotal – not necessarily true or reliable, because based on personal accounts rather than facts or research
• stagehand – a person who moves scenery or props before or during the performance of a play
• doom – death, destruction, or some other terrible
• ingrained – firmly fixed or established; difficult to change

Think about it

Are the statements below true or false?

• Overall, there are more entrepreneurs holding a degree in arts than in business.
• Fresh arts graduates have more hands-on managerial experience than their business school counterparts.
• Artists have to be able to cope with difficult personalities and make them cooperate with other team members.
• The impact of the weakest link in an artistic endeavor can be disregarded if the rest of the team consists of the best.
• The original vision of the artist is the crucial element of any successful artistic project.

Practice makes perfect

Fill in the blank spaces with the missing words.

People like to describe artists ________ eccentric and strange, and many are. So imagine trying to manage an entire company of these weirdos. And ________ somehow, unlike your company, these people happily and consistently deliver highly creative and effective product, even ________ strict time and resource constraints. And the work they deliver almost always considers a powerful customer experience as ________ primary objective. Most artists are drilled repeatedly ________ how to lead their artistic colleagues in ________ collaborative manner to achieve an effective experience. And despite the frequent presence of professional egos that would crush a Goldman Sachs exec, they learn how to bring all people forward together, or ________ art would ever be created.

Fill in the blank spaces with the words in bold.

ingrained   –   gain   –   short   –   engaging   –   consider

You can ________these same lessons by ________ in the arts. Community theater, orchestras, galleries and dance companies are all amazing laboratories for creativity, communication and yes, leadership. People in the arts have these leadership concepts ________ into them through repetitive, practical application. So if your engineers, sales people and managers are coming up ________ in these leadership areas, perhaps you should ________ hiring a few theater, dance, art or music graduates to show them how it’s done.

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