11/21/2018

Leadership lessons from a pop-up choir

Rustandy Singing Photo

How singing together creates better leaders

Leadership is a performance art. To understand it, you have to experience it, and to improve, you have to practice.

That is the philosophy at the Harry L. Davis Center for Leadership at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Always on the lookout to explore the parallels between art and the business world, the center gathered 40 students, faculty, and staff with little or no singing experience to form a Chicago Booth pop-up choir.

After three hours of rehearsal one Saturday afternoon, the one-time pop-up choir performed in front of a live audience and walked away with a new perspective on leadership. Watch video >>

The choir was the brainchild of Harry L. Davis, Roger L. and Rachel M. Goetz Distinguished Service Professor of Creative Management at Chicago Booth, who decades ago laid the groundwork for Booth’s experiential learning curriculum. As head of the namesake center, Davis is deeply committed to experimentation and collaboration, especially with artists, to help students gain insights into how to lead.

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