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Time For A Tango
Professors
Margarita Mayo and Burak Koyuncu present lessons in leadership from the
dance floor
In a series of videos targeted
at alumni, potential students and the public in general, IE Business
School, Madrid, has filmed its faculty explaining their research in some
interesting settings. For example, there's one of marketing professor
Daniel Corsten talking about his work on consumer shopping habits, while
playing the piano and singing Just in Time and All of Me. There's a video
of systems management professor Kiron Ravindran explaining why adopting new
technologies is like taking a plunge — and then bungee jumping from a
bridge.
One of the most charming videos in the series is
that of leadership professor Margarita Mayo dancing the tango with doctoral
student Burak Koyuncu in Madrid's Retiro Park. Unlike Corsten and
Ravindran, who don't require their students to sing or bungee jump as part
of their course requirements, Mayo has actually incorporated a tango
workshop into a course on ransformational leadership. "It provides a
metaphor for understanding both leadership and followership in today's
organizations," she says. "The Argentine tango is about
improvisation, balance and passion. In the tango, one leg
is grounded — providing balance
and stability — while the other is free to innovate.
While dancing, both leaders and followers have to think on their
feet."
Koyuncu, who now teaches leadership at Rouen
Business School in France, has also incorporated a three hour tango lesson
into his course on leadership competency. "There's a certain amount of
leadership in every ballroom dance," he says. "But the special
thing about the tango is that there are no memorized steps. It is totally
improvised and requires there to be a connection between the leader and
follower in order to work. When the connection happens, the result is
magic."
Mayo, who trained as a ballet dancer before
switching to the tango, believes that creating this magical empathy with
followers is the key to leadership. If the empathy is lacking, the leader
must find someone else — the corporate equivalent of looking for new
alliances. "Leaders and followers negotiate their identities,"
she says. "Leaders lay claim to their leading role by creating a
vision of they hope to accomplish. But they only become leaders when they
are granted that identity by followers. In the tango, the follower has
discretion in allowing the leader to do a complicated figure or a pivot.
When this claiming-granting process of leadership identity is harmonious,
then leaders and followers establish a fluid communication that helps
delivering success and a beautiful dance."
Mayo and Koyuncu's initiatives are actually linked
to the newly emerging field of embodied learning, based on the idea that
people learn best through action, thereby making the body as essential to
the learning process as the mind. It is also a part of a larger movement
that seeks to link art and aesthetics to sustainable development of
organizations. As Koyuncu says, "My students might eventually forget
much of what they learnt in the classroom, but they will never forget my tango
class."
The Argentine ballroom tango is a social dance,
with many couples occupying the floor at the same time. When each one
innovates, it has to be in synch with others on the floor. Mayo compares
this to the various business and functional units of an organization, whose
creative energies must be in harmony: "Leaders and followers need to
make sure that their work fits with the general strategy of the
organization and the work of other organizational teams, just as tangueros
need to respect the space and rhythm of others on the dance floor."
There's also a certain old world formality to the ballroom tango that is
appealing. You don't just break into the tango — you have to dress for it
and prepare for it, psychologically and physically. In the traditional
tango, the leader is the man and the follower is the woman, and there is
never any ambiguity about their roles. Right from the onset, the leader's
body posture and facial expression conveys he intends to lead and the
follower conveys she is ready to follow. "Your selfpresentation gives
cues to others about your commitment to the dance and the person in front
of you — just like in an organizational context. The leader has to make
intense eye contact with his partner, make her feel she is the best in the
world. You're dancing very close, chest-to-chest, so the connection is very
intimate," says Mayo.
This intimacy is probably the biggest difference between the tango and
other ballroom dances like the waltz. Mayo believes the difference is
symbolic of the leadership style of a previous era and the styles that are
gaining ground today. Indeed, many international students arrive at IE
Business School with a "high distance" view of leadership, one
where the commanding powers lie with the leader. Mayo says that is one of
the first things they need to unlearn: "They have to imbibe the new
concepts of leadership-followership styles. They have to understand
empowerment."
Meanwhile, IE Business School, has completed the 44th video in its
"The Other Side of IE Professors" series, the latest of which
features Professor Monika Hamori flying in a helicopter over Sergovia while
explaining how executives propel themselves to the top. Sometimes they go
straight up, she says, but usually they take a horizontal detour — just
like a helicopter.
Tango Rules
1 Face your partner and stand closer together than you
would in most other ballroom dances - close enough that your torsos are
touching.
2 If you're the leader, place your right hand on the
middle of your partner's lower back. Extend your left hand out to your side
with your arm bent and grasp your partner's right hand in a loose grip.
Your partner should place her left hand on your right shoulder and place
her right hand lightly in your palm with her right elbow bent.
3 On the first beat, walk forward slowly with your left
foot, placing down your heel first and then your toes. Your partner will
mirror each of your movements on every beat throughout the dance - in this
case, moving her right foot backward, landing her toes and then her heel.
4 On the second beat, step forward slowly with your right
foot so that it moves past your left. You should feel like you are slinking
forward.
5 On the third beat, step forward quickly with your left
foot, then immediately slide your right foot quickly to the right side and
shift your weight to that foot.
6 On the fourth beat, bring your left foot slowly to your
right, leaving your left leg slightly bent as your feet come together. Your
weight should still be on your right foot.
7 Now, shift your weight to your left foot and do a right
forward rock step: While making a half-turn clockwise, step forward quickly
on your right foot, and then quickly shift your weight back to your left
foot. With your right foot, slowly step forward to complete the half turn.
8 Bring your feet together, bring your left foot up next
to your right and repeat steps 3 through 7
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