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By:Chaney14

Guest Blogger, Pattie Roberts, shares this leadership lesson: What are you dancing to? 

I met my friend Tracey’s Aunt Jane in a blues bar and she taught me an astonishingly simple lesson about the dance of leading and following. 

Tracey and I were there because our husbands are musicians and as loyal “groupies” we were supporting their band.  We’ve done this many times over the years and I thought this particular evening would be just another opportunity for us to catch up over a glass of wine.  I never expected to discover a plain, powerful truth about interpersonal skills in a dark cinderblock building that smelled like old beer. 

As the small and remarkably diverse crowd began trickling in, Tracey and I staked out seats at the bar and she introduced me to Aunt Jane.  Jane and her husband Steve were regulars of a sort here.  I wondered why they chose this place — dim and windowless, with wobbly tables, a three-item menu, and a large disco ball over a cleared space in the center.  I had my answer when the music started.  “We come here to dance,” Jane said, and was she ever right.  Almost everyone left their rickety chairs and headed for the glittering dance floor.  Every person there seemed to be Dancing with the Stars-ready on the floor.  “It’s like a club,” Jane told me.  She and Steve and the others would go from venue to venue, depending on where the music was, and dance all night. 

It was fascinating, watching the mismatched couples move perfectly in harmony with each other and the music. There was a tall young black man dancing with a small elderly white woman; a middle-aged woman in shorts and tennis shoes danced with a man in a baggy old suit and a flowing white beard; two women who looked like mother and daughter swung around each other, catching hands and releasing them like dancing together was all they had ever done.  One man who, outside of this venue, would have appeared to be homeless, walked in and made a beeline for a woman with long grey hair and a shapeless sweater.  In moments they were in the crowd under the disco ball, looking for all the world as though they were Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Or perhaps I should say Maksim and Karina?  I’m not what anyone might call graceful so it all looked like magic to me.  How can people who appear so unlike each other all dance together so smoothly, to song after dissimilar song?

Steve was working that night so Jane was happy to sit with me at the bar and narrate the scene.   “It’s all about knowing what your partner is dancing to,” she said.  I didn’t get it.  “Aren’t they all dancing to the music?”  Yes, she said, but some people dance to the melody of a song and some people dance to the rhythm.  She told me that when she and Steve first met, she couldn’t figure out how to dance with him.  No matter how hard they tried, they were always out of synch.  She couldn’t follow when he lead and he couldn’t follow her.  Finally she asked him what he was doing.  “Dancing to the beat” he said, “what are you doing?”  “I dance to the melody” she told me, “and once we realized that we were OK.  Sometimes he leads and I follow to the beat.  Sometimes I lead and he follows to the melody.”

Such a universal quandary.  Such a simple, elegant solution.  Sometimes you lead, sometimes you follow. It’s all about knowing what your partner is dancing to.  I wish I had met Aunt Jane 30 years ago.

Author: Pattie Roberts.
Guest Blogger, Pattie Roberts is a freelance writer and researcher specializing in business -related writing.  Her analytic side loves to find the patterns that live in the numbers.  Her expressive side tells a compelling story in the analyses, plans, briefings, and presentations she writes for you.  She is currently writing strategic plans and developing research audits for trade associations, and is taking on new clients.   Pattie lives in Annapolis, MD, with her husband, the musician Hugh Feeley, and their two rescue Yorkies.   When she is not writing for your business,  Pattie fusses over her roses, nurses her addiction to Yankees baseball, and avidly follows her soon-to-be- married stepdaughter’s career in the USMC .  You can Tweet her at http://twitter.com/pavroberts email her at pavroberts@comcast.net , or visit her at http://www.linkedin.com/in/patriciaroberts.

Tags: dance, follow, lead, Leadership, lesson