What I Learnt About Team Leadership From Lady Gaga

What I Learnt About Team Leadership From Lady Gaga

A few years ago I watched an amazing documentary about Lady Gaga. She certainly is an extraordinarily talented and creative person with the most incredible singing voice. But based on the documentary she must also qualify as one of the world’s most demanding and difficult people… Yet her supporting team are genuinely adoring and will do absolutely anything for her. So how does that work?

I think that answering this question was really the purpose of the documentary. ?And when the answer came it was really quite surprising: Lady Gaga was asked to sing at the US Superbowl game in front of a huge crowd and global television viewers - almost certainly the biggest concert of her entire career. Putting yourself in her shoes, as you were about to stride out onto the pitch to perform you would be gargling, reminding yourself of the song order, the first line of the first song, and what key it is in. And she probably did all of that. But she did one extra thing. Just as she was about to walk out and perform, she stopped to thank her creative director for organising everything so well….

Now that is truly remarkable. Just at the moment she needed to be most focused on herself she chooses instead to direct her attention firmly onto thanking one of her staff. This is what Jan Calzon, CEO of airline SAS used to call a ‘Moment of Truth’ – you either do it or you don’t, you can’t fake it. And it proved that she genuinely cares for and thinks about her staff, as she chose to do something for him, to her own potential detriment, at the most critical moment in her career. And her team love her for that…..

So would I have done that myself? Well probably not. I certainly would have thanked my creative director afterwards, but right then I would have focused on making sure it all ran smoothly.

Do I know any other leader who would have done so? Well, I can only think of two who definitely would: Lord (Colin) Marshall of BA who was the most amazing people-person I’ve ever met; and her late Majesty the Queen. I can imagine Barack Obama doing it too although I’ve never met him.

I think what the incident also illustrates, is Lady Gaga’s immense professionalism. In order to be able to do this she must have been so well prepared that she could simply walk out and perform brilliantly on auto-pilot. For most of us the time pressure of other important things is such that we can almost never be so well prepared before performing that one last run through in our heads before going on wouldn’t enhance our performance.

So having seen the impact of this behaviour pattern on her team would I try to do the same now? Well actually I do try to now, although my success at it varies quite a lot according to how much preparation time I’ve had, and how tense I feel. And would I manage it now in the same circumstance as Lady Gaga? Well ask me to sing at the Superbowl and we’ll all find out……. :-))

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