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7th Art of Management and Organization conference, Copenhagen, August 2014
page 1 of 4
Not your grandmother’s tea dance: followership and leadership
lessons from ballroom dancing
Fides Matzdorf, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK
Ramen Sen, Health and Social Care Information Centre, Leeds, UK
In our experience, managers can learn much from modern competitive ballroom dancing.
Dance embodies many aspects of organisational life in a microcosm – teamwork , power
relationships, job roles, competition, politics, etc. In our experience with dance and leadership
workshops, it offers dancers and non-dancers alike a medium to explore, experiment and
challenge within a facilitated ‘safe’ and playful environment. We argue that, based on the
concept of embodied cognition, dance can provide a vehicle for immediate, implicit ‘insights’
and ‘aha effects’ through sensory, bodily experiences.
Ballroom dancing as a competitive sport is not your grandmother’s tea dance: it is not
leisurely and mechanistic, but fast, powerful and dynamic, pushing the dancers to the limit of
their strength and stamina. Both partners have to put in almost equal amounts of energy and
power to make a performance work (many top coaches estimate it as ‘leader 51%, follower
49%’).
We cannot emphasise the ‘power of the follower’ enough – but generally dancing requires
mutual enabling: the follower has to allow the leader to lead and vice versa, otherwise the
envisaged goal, the performance of the dance, cannot be achieved: “Followers are active
agents in the leadership relationship, not passive recipients of the leader’s influence.” (Rost
1991). In Kelley’s (2008) terms, would a successful dance partnership require a ‘star
follower’ rather than a ‘sheep’, ‘yes-person’, ‘alienated’ or ‘pragmatic’ follower? Or the
‘courageous follower’ that Chaleff (2009) envisages? From Ropo and Sauer’s paper (2008),
one gets the impression that a ‘waltz leader’ would prefer a compliant ‘sheep’ or ‘yes-person’
– but in contemporary competitive dancing this would not be an adequate basis for top
performances!
Follower and leader have to manage themselves in their respective roles (Lawrence 1979), but
also manage their relationship to each other (trust, acceptance, allowing mistakes), their own
‘private space’, their ‘communal space’, as well as the space around them and the ‘moving
obstacles’ in it – the other dancers on the floor, competing and collaborating for space to
‘power through’.
Beyond themselves, dance partners also have to manage the relationship with the rhythm of
the music, and both the amount (small vs large floor) and the shape (square vs rectangular vs
any other shape of floor) of the space around them. ‘Crisis management’, i.e. reacting to
sudden, unpredictable changes in the environment or their own condition, is as much a part of
the complexity of this situation as coordination of their different tasks. Küpers (2013) talks
about “improvisation as enactment of inter-practice in leadership” and “embodied practicing
of leadership”.
Not your grandmother’s tea dance: followership and leadership lessons from ballroom dancing
AoMO 2014 page 2 of 4
Having taken this literally and put it into physical practice, we have been able to explore the
“practicing [...] of leader- and followership” (Küpers 2013) as it “arises from direct and
engaged participation in bodily experiences, acts and responses of living and organising”
(ibid.). We looked at these issues in a range of practical workshops, where participants were
invited to partner up, establish a ‘team relationship’, whilst being aware of their own body and
balance, listening to and communicating (non-verbally) with their partner, using their senses
as well as reflection to experience and explore some of these complexities for themselves. It
was fun and a challenge! Workshops involve ‘leadership’ dynamically moving between leader
and follower (including swapping roles) and a ‘mini competition’, as well as pauses for
reflection and feedback.
Main issues arising in these workshops (including the most recent one at the AoMO
conference 2014)
1
:
● Gender issues (and non-issues), from power issues to feeling more ‘natural’ in one
role or the other – interestingly, we regularly come across women who find that
leading suits their ‘natural’ style better, and men who feel more comfortable being
followers.
● Relaxation, ease, experimenting, curiosity, chemistry, nerves, confidence…: Some
participants arrive with a sense of ‘two left feet’, but find that they get into the ‘swing’
of it more easily than others with years of dance experience. Thinking ‘on your feet’,
whilst a daily experience for many managers, is something they are not used to in a
non-verbal way (“I cannot think of the signals, but my body does”).
● More difficult experiences, such as a leader claiming ‘great teamwork’ and ‘mutual
trust’, whilst the follower felt ‘not heard’ and pushed around; or an inexperienced
(male) leader’s right hand inadvertently ending up on his (female) follower’s bottom,
giving rise to some embarrassment, comments on ‘inappropriate touching’, some
nervous laughter, and some joking ‘retaliation’ from the follower.
● Trying to cope with the unexpected, trying to cope with difficulties arising takes
people out of their comfort zone: “Got annoyed when others didn’t do as expected.” –
“Uncomfortable: Navigating the space on the floor.” – “Didn’t enjoy other people.” –
“...a bit tricky to manage not bumping into people” – “Good when things ‘flowed’, not
good when we were confused/going in different directions.” – “Panic overrode
instruction.” – “Instinct takes over under stress.” – “...went to bits as we passed the
facilitators/judges.” – “Motion gives no time for reflection.”
● Generally participants comment on the importance of feeling safe when trying
things out: “Good: [...] the relaxed comfort” – “It was good to try something new, to
dance with someone I don’t know well, and to be able to ‘work’ well together.” –
1
Comments quoted here come from workshop participants’ feedback forms. Workshops have been running
since 2005.
Not your grandmother’s tea dance: followership and leadership lessons from ballroom dancing
AoMO 2014 page 3 of 4
“Good: expert knowledge of coaches; demonstration; visual aids (charting space);
‘giving it a go’.” – “Also, generally very impressed with the manner in which you
handled the issue of the physical proximity/contact at the outset to diffuse and prevent
it becoming an issue.”
● Participants make their own connections with their work context: “Collaboration is a
powerful force.” – “The relationship between leader & follower, being clear and being
comfortable = success & development.” – “Trust – working together. Teamwork.
Allowing partner to do their role.” – “Even in leadership [sic!], you have to develop
trust for others to follow.” – “Interesting parallels to real life: rushing through will
spoil everything.” – “Specifically interpersonal power dynamics.”
Overall, we have come to the conclusion that the workshop format is a useful ‘tool’ to bring
people to their senses (Springborg 2010) and to facilitate ‘holistic’ or ‘integrated’ learning. In
Springborg’s (2012) terms, it provides a “focus on maintaining connection through continued
sensing regardless of what we may become aware of in the process” (ibid. p.129).
Despite being dance practitioners, our experience does not corroborate Springborg’s (2012)
finding that “Scholars with artistic backgrounds [...] often argue that a certain level of skill in
working with the artistic medium of choice is beneficial and maybe even necessary to benefit
from art-based approaches” and that “the facilitator may need to weigh possible benefits of an
artistic medium against possible disadvantages of managers’ lack of skills in working with
this medium” (ibid. p128). On the contrary, many people with ‘two left feet’ seem to feel their
way around just as well as those participants who have prior dance experience. In fact, the
latter can find that their expectations, preconceptions and sometimes negative experiences
(especially around making mistakes and subsequent fault-finding) occasionally get in the way
of ‘being in the moment’ and exploring collaboration and possibilities with the current
partner.
One reason why we see ballroom dancing as particularly well suited to exploring leadership
and followership is not only the fact that ballroom dancing inherently has lead and follow
built in, but also that it allows people to engage in and focus on non-verbal communication.
Although phases of reflection are designed into the workshop, the main emphasis is on
sensing rather than talking. It allows participants to experiment and stretch the boundaries of
their comfort zone. Observations and participant feedback show that this ‘stretching’ actually
happens. However, it should be noted that careful facilitation is required to make participants
feel safe enough to experiment and run the risk of looking ‘silly’.
Not your grandmother’s tea dance: followership and leadership lessons from ballroom dancing
AoMO 2014 page 4 of 4
References:
CHALEFF, Ira (2009). The Courageous Follower: Standing up to and for our Leaders. 3rd
ed., San Francisco, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.
KELLEY, Robert E. (2008). Rethinking followership. In: The Art of Followership : How
great followers create great leaders and organizations. San Francisco, John Wiley & Sons, 5-
15.
KÜPERS, Wendelin M. (2013). Embodied inter-practices of leadership – phenomenological
perspectives on relational and responsive leading and following. Leadership, 9 (3), 335-357.
LAWRENCE, W. Gordon (1979). A concept for today: The management of self in role. In:
LAWRENCE, W. G. (ed.). Exploring Individual and Organizational Boundaries. Chichester,
John Wiley & Sons.
ROPO, Arja and SAUER, Erika (2008). Dances of leadership: Bridging theory and practice
through an aesthetic approach. Journal of Management and Organization, 14 (5), 560.
ROST, Joseph C. (1991). Leadership for the twenty-first century. Praeger.
SPRINGBORG, Claus (2010). Leadership as art – leaders coming to their senses. Leadership,
6 (3), 243-258.
SPRINGBORG, Claus (2012). Perceptual refinement: Art-based methods in managerial
education. Organizational Aesthetics, 1 (1), 116-137.
