Slow Dancing

Argentine Tango has taught me a lot about leadership. Wait, what?! What does Tango, or any other dance have to do with leadership? Let me explain. 

I see a strong parallel between the stages of maturing for a leader and the stages of growth I’ve experienced studying Argentine Tango for over 12 years. 

Beginner dancers copy what they think more experienced leaders do without understanding if it fits their context.  As a beginner Tango leader, you try to step on every beat and respond to the melody of the song. You turn using your shoulders instead of turning from your spine. Dancing this way you feel others around are in your way. You’re more focused on your stepping on the beat than what your dance partner is feeling and doing. Supposedly you’re leading. In reality, by responding just from your head, you’re dancing alone. 

You’re dancing alone because you’re not taking others into consideration. Not your partner, the music, (musicians if it’s live), or the other dancers. The result is a hectic, exhausting dance pushing and pulling the follower around the dance floor, slaloming around other couples as you lap them. In the workplace, this might be seen with inexperienced leaders responding rapidly to every email, every comment, every question. Dominating most conversations. Leading like this, I wouldn’t be surprised if you felt out of breath, constrained, or even exhausted. This style of leadership doesn’t empower others to support you or common objectives. Burn-out isn’t surprising.

What if you saw leadership more like an improvisational dance where you’re continually inviting others into new possibilities or opportunities that arise from cooperation and collaboration? Argentine Tango is an improvisational dance with African roots where the couple are in a call and response relationship to the music (and if the music is live, the musicians too). During the dance, the leader opens a door and invites the follower to enter. The follower chooses how they enter, usually in response to the call of the music. The way the follower enters the step creates a new possibility, a new opportunity, to which the leader responds. 

To respond effectively to the follower, a Tango leader must listen and dance with their heart and body, not just their head. Leaders make sure the follower steps on the beat, they give space for the follower to respond to the song in their own way, they breathe with the music. They ride the line or the wave of the music. They dance in the space available, considerate of others around them.

Slowing down and finding the space in between the beats allows Tango dancers to respond to the subtle possibilities the music offers. This can’t happen if you’re dancing from the head. It can only come when you allow the space for the dance to emerge from your heart and body in response to the music and your dance partner. What if you allowed more space for your heart and body in how you are responding as a leader?

Currently, what are the qualities of your leadership? In what ways do you respond “head-first”? How does your listening change when you turn your attention towards sensations in your body? When you turn your awareness towards your heart? What might become possible if you slow down and listen to what’s needed, when, and by whom, to ensure that the “shared axis” of your work has collaboration and mutual support?