acondas training “Inspirational Leadership” with Christian Gansch and Nils Cornelissen
“The art of conducting consists in knowing when to stop conducting to let the orchestra play.” (Herbert von Karajan)
How large is the common denominator between conducting a world-class orchestra and leading a management consultancy? Much larger than generally expected.
Last week, the acondas leadership team was trained to become “inspirational leaders” by immersing into the world of orchestras. The welcomed Christian Gansch, the renowned conductor, music producer and coach, who conducted world-class orchestra such as the Munich, Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras as well as the Metropolitan Opera New York. Besides, Christian earned international reputation as a producer of classical music.
The acondas leadership team learned that conducting a world-class orchestra requires leadership skills and styles similar to those of top managers. This includes situational leadership, leading by information, leading as a change process, leading with feedback, praise, and respect. Besides, top leadership requires high professionalism on both sides. The professional principles of an orchestra – craftsmanship, precision, and discipline – can be directly translated to the context of a management consultancy. And a key factor of top leadership is the charisma of the leader who has to inspire his or her teams to let “the sparks fly”.
During the training, the sparks definitely flew: Christian Gansch provided many entertaining anecdotes from his rich life as conductor and producer. Besides he took us in many trips to classical concerts from Beethoven and Bach to Prokofjew and Wagner.
The excitement for this special training is also reflected in the voices of our managers:
Arne: “Thanks to the engaging speaker, we were able to see issues from our own leadership context in a new light, and developed methods to effectively address difficulties.”
Niclas: “An enriching and entertaining experience, which equally stimulates reflection on one’s own leadership behavior and points out approaches for improvement.”
This training was led again by Nils Cornelissen, who has been accompanying acondas for many years as competent and entertaining trainer and leadership coach.
A big “thank you” to Christian, Nils and the leadership team for this great experience.