JABULANI SIKHAKHANE: Leaders who make you feel you’re ‘one of them’ usually gather followers
Jazz pianist Count Basie believed he was not the boss of the band but the fulcrum of a collective of equals
15 November 2022 - 15:50
Often people will follow a leader not because they’re the best, technically speaking, but because of how they make them feel — that they are one of them.
The late US jazz pianist William “Count” Basie was one such leader. He led a jazz orchestra alongside Duke Ellington’s. The two — the Count and the Duke — were different characters, musically and in terms of socioeconomic status. They would compete fiercely in public but remained, until death, members of a mutual admiration society. So much so that they sent each other birthday wishes...
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