Leadership, Choice, Personal Power, and 'Small' Moments
We all choose.
We choose to declare ourselves or not. To fall in line or to step out of line. To put ourselves ‘out there’ or not. To recognize and reinforce someone else’s effort and risk, or to maintain silence. To support what we believe by what we do. To seize and expand a moment created by another. Great leaders (and great followers) maintain a vigilance about such choices.
In smaller, sometimes barely detectable ways, such choices come to each of us every day. They carry special significance in times such as ours, times that may lead us, to paraphrase Mother Teresa, to forego altering the ocean with consciously chosen droplets from our lives. Yet, if we’re lucky, then we notice when the choices come to us, when someone else has made a choice that, in the moment, creates a choice for us. And, as the Irish might say, ‘nothing happened until you respond’. What we do (or don’t do) defines the current moment, the preceding moment, and the pending moment. We should dearly recall that we carry this power across our time--as leaders, as followers, as people sharing the river.
The following personal anecdote tells of connected moments-- birthed by another, recognized by me, and created by us. In a small way, the tale testifies to the power we all hold. Still hold. Leaders and followers alike…
My wife and I attended an out of area wedding this past weekend. We enjoyed the ceremony and festivities. We did, though, take a pass on the post wedding club hopping— even consideration of such activity being confined to distant and foggy memory! Nonetheless, a wonderful event representing and promising love… and a very good band.
The band. Twelve musicians, six of them singers, covered most genres of popular music from Taylor Swift to Bruno Mars to the Four Tops to Stevie Wonder. The band did so with notably more drive, skill, style, variety, attitude, funk, and soul than the average wedding band. Versatile and good.
Over dinner, plates and utensils rattled and table talk rose in volume. Fortunately, I became aware of one of the singers performing an out of character song—for the band and for him—with minimal and subdued accompaniment. His moment.
He respectfully and lovingly worked his way through, even, I'd say, caressed “The Way You Look Tonight”. Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields wrote the song for Fred Astaire and it won the Academy Award for Best Original song in 1936. In the movie Swing Time, Astaire sings the song to Ginger Rogers who is washing her hair in an adjoining room. A wide variety of singers covered the song immediately, i.e., in that SAME year, including Bing Crosby/Dixie Lee, Teddy Wilson with a 21-year-old Billie Holiday, and Guy Lombardo. The list of artists covering the song since includes Tony Bennett/Thalia and Rod Stewart. (“The Way You Look Tonight” even makes the soundtrack of Steve Martin’s Father of the Bride!) However, many would say that Frank Sinatra created ‘the standard’ in 1964. Listen
This night at this wedding, this singer made the song his own while splicing in DNA from Sinatra, vocally and with gestures. The song was his, homage bits notwithstanding-- made his from the singing to the styling to the pacing. And, I’d opine, the singer evidenced deep caring for and respect of the song.
I don’t know how many guests even noticed this piece of ‘background music’. I only know I certainly did.
I found a crease in the band’s relentless post dinner performance to catch the singer on the side of the stage. I literally ‘tugged on his coat’. He graciously bent his ear toward me so that he could hear me over the band and accepted my offering. “I want to thank you for your personal and loving rendition of ‘The Way You Look Tonight”. He turned toward me and smiled, ‘Thank you very much.’
I continued, placing my left arm on his right, “The song was yours and Frank was in the room.” He looked down from the stage and squared off with me. His face almost exploded with an ear to ear, full toothed grin. He placed his right hand on my shoulder and his left hand over his heart, patting his chest with his fingers as he said, “Thank you so much, man!”
I mirrored the movements of his left hand with my right hand. “No, no” I declared, each of us now with one hand on the other’s shoulder, “Thank YOU!”
Two people. One song about 90 years old. Different generations. Different life trajectories. Different races.
One moment of shared appreciation by two guys of a classic love song sung at a celebration of love, sung with talent and heart as a contribution to an event commemorating a connection and a loving union... All occurring in a time, in a zeitgeist seemingly overflowing with strident disconnection.
Our choices continue to matter.
What a wedding!
(I’ll get back to ‘business’ with my next newsletter… honest—I’ve published several articles recently: one lessons about downsizing and another in an academic journal about understanding what happened/is happening at Boeing. Two colleagues and I are busy converting our extensive FDNY research into a book for the 25th anniversary of 9/11 in 2026. Talk soon.)