MY DUAL ROLE AS A LEADER AND AS A MUSIC STUDENT

As the CEO of a music school people often asked me that which musical instrument I master in and each time (with regret) I mentioned that I was more of a proud audience to my talented students. But now finally after a few years of learning piano across various geographies I have found my solace in drums.

Why only the drums? You might ask. Well, no, no, it's no mid life crisis. Each one of us has a calling and for this year drums is mine. 

As I started my journey on perfecting this beautiful instrument, I came face to face with my dual role as a leader and as a student of music. This made me observant of quite a few similarities between the two and I would today like to share these parallels with you.

·Playing on time - This is one of the most important element while learning any instrument for a music disciple. And as a leader too every decision needs to be made on time and each action has to be taken after deep thinking. Any delay will leave you off tune and unfortunately some decisions can't be undone. So both, the leaders as well as the music students need to play at the right time.

·Practice, practice and practice - Every musician will agree that the only way you can master an instrument is by practicing it diligently. Similarly, the only way by which a leader can make an idea successful is by pursuing it relentlessly. No business can be successful without the leaders putting in their hard-work into the tasks and also no music student can attain great heights without religiously practicing their art. 

·Alignment – The Drums are one of those instruments in which all the four limbs need to move at different beats based on the repertoire. The idea is to achieve perfection with practise, across all the limbs. Similarly as a leader you have to manage the various verticals of finance, HR, Marketing, Sales and Operations and align all these units to form a strong business foundation. No one unit excelling can help you bring the best performance you need to align all the units to bring out the very best.

·The power of patience – During the initial stage of learning the drums the students are made to practice on Drum thrones. The entire class is about you learning how to hold your drum sticks and getting the right timing and these classes may continue till weeks. The pleasure of going and playing on the drum set is only once you have practiced enough on the drum thrones. Similarly as a leader it is important to have patience at every step in order to build up a big business starting from scratch. Hence, both – a leader and a music student need to embrace the power of patience.

·Team Work - Last but not the least, no performance is successful without the beautiful synchronization of the entire performing team. In music the role of a conductor is to mediate a beautiful synchronization and get the best rhythm from the team. Similarly in a business, the role of a leader is to work with the entire team and align the verticals together to achieve huge success. 

 So as I embrace and enjoy my dual role as a music student and as a leader I always look forward to my next drums class with my trainer who patiently supports my enthusiasm and motivates me to channelize all my energies to get the Big Bang!