Boss Magic Lessons Brought to You by Beychella! How to Use Your Platform to Elevate through Edutaintainment

Beyoncé sprinkled boss magic all over the stage at her historic performance at Coachella and taught us all a lesson on how to really use a platform. Her nearly two-hour performance enthralled viewers as she schooled the world on black music and traditions—HBCU style.  Not once, but twice!!  She brought excellence during two different performances and outdid herself the second time around. She was so good that Coachella became Beychella! Her epic show was not just entertaining, but edutaining! Edutainment is the artful way of educating an audience in the guise of entertainment. As business leaders, it is important to learn not only how to keep an audience’s attention, but how to slide in information without being too presentationy. (Yeah, I made up a word!  That’s my own personal boss magic!) Educating audiences on policies, ideas, products and services can be entertaining when engaging approaches are used. Additionally, as thought-leaders and influencers, we can use our stages—virtual and literal—to elevate issues that are important to us. Beyoncé has mastered the art of using her stage to highlight social justice and cultural issues that her star status enables her to champion—and we dance right along to it! But most importantly, Beyoncé used her Coachella stage to teach us all lessons on how to elevate a platform.

When You Are on a Stage, Own It

Anytime you take the stage, either literally when giving a speech, presentation, or performance, or just sharing your wisdom in a conversation, it is important to take advantage of the opportunity to say something that really matters. Don’t pull any stops. Be unapologetically fabulous. You have something important to add. Take yourself off mute! Sometimes we don’t shine our brightest because we are afraid that others can’t stand our shine. One thing that I love about Beyoncé is her commitment to ensuring that her stage presence represents her brand with excellence. Whether she is on stage alone or on stage with other performers, her level of excellence is the same. As business leaders, we must have one standard when it comes to our performance. Go hard or stay home! We owe it to ourselves to be our best regardless of the forum. Whether we are “performing” for one or “performing” for thousands, we should show up with the same amount of preparation, saliency, and impact. We don’t need couture costumes, dancers, and musicians, but executive presence. Executive presence is the confidence that projects your message with clarity, skill, and mastery. Executive presence embodies your posture, your tone of voice, your engagement, and, most importantly, your content. Embody the CEO within you to command respect, attention, and influence. You are the expert. Act like it! 

Control the Narrative and Handle It Like A Pro

Beyoncé supposedly ask all social media outlets to not allow fans to post amateur pictures of her performance so no unflattering pictures would be posted. And? Some would argue that is the ultimate diva move. I’d say that’s great brand management. We must not be afraid to take control of the narrative about our lives and businesses.  Our image is our intellectual property. We should unapologetically protect it. Our message and voice are just like a photo. We should not allow others to speak for us but be proactive in speaking for ourselves. Rather than allow others to dominate the development of our brand image in the marketplace, we should actively participate in shaping the narrative that authentically reflects the values, expertise, and quality that we have worked so hard to build. You can’t control what people think, but you can control what you give them to think about. Just like Beyoncé does not want unflattering photos that tarnish her brand, we should doggedly protect our brand image. Don’t allow shoddy work product, ill-prepared and under executed events or documents publish an image of unprofessionalism. Finally, we need to stop bootlegging our way to success. Invest in the pros.  Invest in yourself! Don’t let amateurs ruin your brand image with subpar work. When it comes to brand management, you get what you pay for. Be committed to a level of excellence that represents the value you bring to the table. Your behavior, actions, and performance should be a million-dollar brand!

Be Authentic. Use Your Platform to Elevate

 The Coachella Audience is primary white and showcases a rock genre. In fact, Beyoncé was the first black artist to headline the concert series. Beyoncé could have chosen a show that was universal, but she chose to use her platform to highlight African American music styles, African music and Afro-Caribbean beats.  Her entire show was unapologetically black. Even her mother questioned this approach and asked why she didn’t choose a theme that was more in line with the Coachella artists of the past. Beyoncé reportedly acknowledged the elevated platform that she had been given and advocated for her commitment to using it to champion cultural elements that only she could elevate. The boss magic lesson here is, “Don’t water down your message down to please the masses. Amplify your influence to bring your message to the masses!” 

As business leaders, we are given great power and responsibility to use our influence to share important issues that others need to hear. That’s the beauty of diversity. It exposes people to different ideas that enable them to decide on change in their thoughts, practices, and actions. As business leaders, we must not be afraid to disrupt the status quo when the disruption can bring about positive change. If we are intimidated by the possibility that people will think we are different or that they won’t like what we have to say, we miss out on the opportunity to truly be a game changer and use our influence to make a difference. The best place to engage in dialogue about differences is in a crowd that ordinarily would not be inclined to discuss the issues. If you are only talking about issues with people who agree with you all the time, you are just pontificating when you could be advocating. Introducing innovation is a key proficiency of a CEO. So be like Beyoncé; be unapologetic in bringing your authentic ideas to the table. Not everyone will agree, but your message will reach those that it is meant to influence. Those who don’t get it, won’t. Those who do get it, will get it and pass it on and, Voila! Your message becomes a movement!

Bring Others on Stage with You

Coachella was Beyoncé’s moment! It was her showcase! It was her stage. And she was not afraid to share it! Beyoncé brought Destiny’s Child, Solange and Jay Z on stage to perform. She also had over 150 dancers and band members. She paid homage to those who came before her. The boss magic lesson here is: You don’t have to exclude others to shine. Collaboration makes you more powerful. Instead of viewing your competitors as the enemy, use them as an incentive to improve your personal best. Embrace the concept of collaborative competition. Collaborate with others to become more competitive in the marketplace. Partner with others who will accentuate your boss magic. Your boss magic is unique to you and will not be diminished by someone else’s talents. When you stand in your excellence zone, you shine no matter what. Real CEOs don’t execute solo. They build great teams that can do more, go further, perform greater, and leverage the talents, skills, and expertise of others to achieve a shared vision. As a business leader, you are more powerful when you build alliances rather than trying to do all by yourself.

The lesson within a lesson that Beyoncé has taught us is the power of synergy in your roles. As the CEO of your life, you will have to tackle many roles—wife, husband, lover, sister, brother, mother, father, friend, AND business leader. It doesn’t have to be either or. Beyoncé brought her friends, her sister, and her husband on stage. This is synergy at its best. It doesn’t have to be lonely at the top. It can be inclusive of all the people and things that you love. Not everyone can literally perform with or go into business with their loved ones, but you can include them in the journey in a way that best meets your needs and capabilities. It takes a commitment to communicate, coordinate, and collaborate to make sure that your career doesn’t exclude them and vice versa. Being the CEO of your life enables to you to design a stage where all of your loves converge.

When You Face Delays, Don’t Despair, Dream Bigger

Beyoncé was supposed to perform at Coachella last year but she became pregnant with her twins. She said that she spent that time dreaming a bigger show than she would have performed last year. This beautiful boss magic lesson taught us that sometimes our deferment is really downtime to design an even greater debut! We face many disruptions in our plans. Disruptions are by design unsettling. A disruption by definition is a disturbance or problem that interrupts an event, activity, or process. Who wants to be interrupted? Interruptions are annoying, right? You are going along, doing your thing and here comes an interruption! WHAT? Disappointment. Discouragement. Disrespect. Derailment. Defeat. Divorce.  Dismal it seems, but not really. You see, these D’s are just deferred dreams that you have the power to elevate on the way back up! It’s all about turning your demotion into a promotion to your purpose! Beyoncé’s 2017 performance would have been great had she performed as expected. But the time spent enabled her to dream up an even bigger performance that made her 2018 performance epic! Being the CEO of your life positions you to optimize the delays and turn them into the performance of a life time!

Whether you love Beyoncé or think she is just another singer, you can learn great lessons from her epic Coachella performances. The last lesson that the second performance taught us all is that success can be replicated. When you embrace mastery, you can replicate success over and over again. It may be a different stage. It may be a different date, but you possess the core of excellence that enables you to show up time and time again to give a masterful performance that edutains, elevates, and accelerates! It takes commitment, practice, preparation, and a decision that nothing less than excellence will do. Just like Beyoncé, when you take the stage, you are only competing with yourself.  You are showing yourself and that world that you will not only Upgrade U, but upgrade your expectations, performance level and outcomes. 

Now, go sprinkle your own Boss Magic! Your stage is waiting!

Dr. Stephanie D. Barnes is an internationally recognized speaker, leadership expert, TEDx presenter, and media personality. Stephanie is the Founder of the C-Suite Women's Network-where women become the CEO of their lives! A Harvard educated lawyer and former corporate executive, Dr. Barnes coaches and transforms high-producing business leaders. Dr. Barnes has been featured in the Harvard Business Review, Personal Excellence Magazine, and the Huffington Post. Her mission is to get you to your C-Suite-Where you make the decisions to elevate your life and accelerate your revenue! Dr. Stephanie D. Barnes is the CEO of The Fruition Group, LLC, a company that specializes in personal excellence, leadership and strategic planning solutions for businesses and organizations.  She is a former corporate executive with vast experience in organizational and leadership development, project management and corporate strategic planning activities. She equips leaders to navigate a clear path for their career progression, revenue acceleration and elevate their influence as a leader in the marketplace and community. Stephanie primarily works with high-powered professionals who are ready to be the CEOs of their lives—to develop strategies to achieve the results they desire in their business, careers, and lives through training, coaching, and providing accountability support for goal execution.

Dr. Stephanie D. Barnes can be reached at [email protected] or call (228) 238-7997. Her website is www.drstephaniedbarnes.com. Follow Stephanie on Twitter @crownedatbirth or www.facebook.com/StephanieDBarnesPhD and instagram @drstephaniedbarnes. To discover how to get to your C-Suite, go to www.discovertheceoinyou.com to schedule a strategy session.