Leadership in Tune: What a Grammy-Winning Guitarist Taught Us About Leading Well

The path to becoming a better leader doesn’t just involve studying extraordinary leaders or management books. Some of the most powerful leadership lessons can be extracted from everyday activities and environments that may seem far removed from the business world.

Such was the case yesterday as we (Thrivence) hosted the leadership team from a local fintech company that was facing some internal struggles of alignment and tension. Kicking off our day was Gordon Kennedy, extraordinary multi-Grammy-winning songwriter, producer, and guitarist for top artists like Garth Brooks during the last 30 years. We asked Gordon to help us understand the intricacies of guitar tuning, and boy did he “perform”.

The wonder in the room was palpable. Not just from his stories and virtuoso playing, but from the meaningful lessons we discovered in this very Nashville metaphor. Here are a few that I want to share with you.

In the “old days” a band would ask the keyboard player to strike a note; then the other musicians would tune to that note.

• In what ways as a leader are you the central note on which your team focuses? What responsibility do you take to ensure you are striking the right note?

Prior to digital monitors that accurately measure tone for easily tuning stringed instruments, musicians tuned by ear.

• How do your skills, experience, and values enable you to make prudent decisions in the moment, confident that you can guide wisely without supporting data?

One string can be used to tune the next.

• Accentuate collaboration and community (especially in-person) to advance your team collectively. Make available ways they can make each other better.

Too much tension in a string can cause it to break, often in the most inopportune times.

• What constraints and guardrails do you have in place with you and your team? And do these boundaries enable employees to know when they are reaching the breaking point?

Too little tension in a string does not produce what it is built to do.

• Do you invite healthy conflict into your team? Are they (and you) skilled at having difficult discussions that protect respect and refine options for peak results?

Vibrations of adjacent strings can produce harmonics.

• Do you notice when team members are in sync and seemingly are producing perfect outcomes in tandem? Sometimes labeled “flow”, this unity is difficult to produce but oh so fun to experience.

Sometimes guitar players intentionally create dissonance in chords.

• Do you welcome the odd perspective or the alternate idea distinctly different than the norm? In what ways can you help outliers be solid producers?

Sometimes the guitar is beautifully tuned, but the musician plays it “too hard”.

• Are you self-aware when your team is motivated and trained, yet your unrealistic expectations exert significant pressure that undermines performance? Be careful.

External factors—humidity, temperature, movement—often deteriorate tuning.

• How resilient are you to not only anticipate negative influences, but also to respond quickly and strategically when they occur? Plan ahead for the “oh no moments”.

Occasionally the guitar neck bends and shifts the tuning of all strings.

• How do you adapt to organizational changes that impact your team? Can you put in place safeguards or contingency plans to ensure any impacts are minimal and temporary?

By taking the time to identify underlying principles at play in ordinary pursuits, we can gain valuable insights to apply in professional leadership roles. Be curious. Seek to extract the not-so-obvious and see if those observations can inform a path forward or a new line of thinking at work.

Gary McClure is a senior consultant at Thrivence, a consulting firm specializing in strategy, leader development, organizational performance, and technology. For more than 15 years, Gary has led organizational transformation initiatives and taught leaders how to navigate successful change, including AI. He can be reached at gary.mcclure@thrivence.com. We offer a full suite of planning services, from in-depth discovery and strategy activities to implementation and communications expertise.