The ICFA Educational Conference is coming up next Tuesday, Feb 28, and though I won’t be able to make it, it’s made me think a little bit about leadership, which is one of the topics the ICFA often covers in its educational sessions during Casual Market.
So here’s the story — and bear with me, because it takes place 15 years ago.
As one of only two freshmen who landed a spot on my high school drumline, I always wanted to be a captain in my senior year.
And that was pretty likely. With many drumlines, there is a hierarchy. It mostly focuses on upper and lower classmen, and it has a lot to do with the instruments themselves. Snare drums were upperclassmen, cymbals were lower classmen, and so on.
And like the movie “Drumline,” every freshman dreams of making snare their first year. But unlike in “Drumline,” none of them ever do.
The year before I became captain, when I played the tenor drum, the drumline changed entirely. The incoming captains introduced all-new cadences and accompanying movements. The problem for me became that all of the snare parts I had previously been practicing had now been thrown out the window for the next year.
Long story short, I ended up playing snare and learning all new parts the summer before my senior year. But because I followed the ways of the old guard and felt like I had to play snare, I didn’t give the rest of the line the proper care they needed to learn and grow. That was my biggest mistake. If I had disregarded the “hierarchy,” I could have let someone else learn and grow while I led in ways that strengthened the entire line.
The most important thing I’ve come to understand from this experience is that a leader can stay behind the scenes and still be wildly effective. In fact, that likely happens more than we realize. And leaders don’t necessarily need to follow how it’s been done in the past to get it done right. Because sometimes skewing from the norm is exactly what you need to make things work for everyone.
I didn’t realize this the year after or 10 years after I left the drumline, because sometimes these things take time and self-evaluation. So as many of you head to Nashville for the conference and as we all get deeper into 2023, keep this in the back of your head when working with your teammates.
