Sting: A Servant Leader

by Herb Rubenstein

Introduction

Sting, the rock star, has put together world-class bands throughout his career. Recently, Sting and his band had a concert scheduled in San Diego, California. Bob Hughes, President of Compass Radio, and CEO of a radio station in San Diego had arranged to interview Sting for his radio station.

In preparation for the interview, Bob Hughes attended the Sting rehearsal scheduled the afternoon before the concert. Hughes, an accomplished musician in his own right, had heard Sting play many times and knew his music and Sting’s musical talent.

Collaboration Is The Essence of Servant Leadership

During the rehearsal Sting abruptly stopped playing and singing and raised his hand. This stopped the band in its tracks. He said,

“Something is not right.

The song doesn’t sound right.”

He then said,

“Let’s go around and each person

let me know what you think is wrong.”

Each member of the band thought for a minute and then explained why the song was not being played well and made suggestions for how to make it sound better.

After each member of the band gave their ideas and suggestions, Sting said what he thought was not right with how the song was being played and made suggestions to make the song better pretty much echoing what the other band members had said.

The Instant Result

The band jumped back into the song and it sounded great. Rehearsal ended and Bob Hughes went up to Sting to start his interview.

Bob remarked that he noticed that Sting stopped the band and asked each member for his views on what was going wrong in the rehearsal. Bob, then said,

“It is obvious that a person of your immense talent knew exactly what was going wrong with the song and you knew exactly how each member of the band should change the way they were playing to improve the song. Yet, you stopped, took the time and asked each member of the band what they were thinking and how they thought the band could improve the way it was playing the song.”

Bob, then asked,

“Why did you do this? Most band leaders of your stature would have just told everyone what to do to improve the music?”

Sting responded, and I paraphrase:

We have the best musicians in the world in our band. I would be a fool not to ask each one for their views on how we sounded and for their ideas on how we could sound even better. When you ask each member for their views and suggestions, you can expect them to play better than if you just tell them what to do.

Sting also said that he never thought he had all of the answers necessary to make the band’s music the best it could be. He said he regularly solicited his band members to bring their ideas for improvement to the entire band whenever they had them.

Acting On A Principle

Sting’s answers demonstrate one of the key principles of what we call servant-leadership. The “leader” consults with others on all but technical matters. (In technical matters where we as human beings have developed exactly the expertise to solve the problem, you hire the expert and there is no consultation, if the problem is diagnosed properly, since the expert knows how to solve that exact problem. For example, when the doctor is operating on a knee for an easily diagnosed skiing injury, there is no committee or consultation during the operation).

For other problems, we call adaptive problems, based on the work of Ron Heifetz, where there is no one, right, and accepted technical solution, or where we have not yet been able to diagnose the problem, like the one with the song, the leader then should consult with others who may shed light on the solution (or the diagnosis). And, it is imperative that the leader actually listen to others as they share their insights. Then, after consultation, in the servant-leader tradition, the leader seeks to lead by consensus if it is possible to obtain such a consensus. The leader is trusted because she or he has regularly solicited the views of everyone in the group and on many occasions has used these views to create solutions better than any one person, including the leader, could have provided.

Sting treated every member of the group as a “leader.” And Sting knows that people directly involved in crafting a solution often perform better in implementing that solution than those who are told by the leader what the solution is and are told what to do by the leader.

Conclusion

Bob Hughes knew something “different” was going on when Sting asked every member of the band to participate as a leader in making the song better. This is one reason Sting is able to attract the best musicians in the world to his band. Sting proves every day that servant-leadership works in the music world.