The Hidden Connection between Ballroom Dancing and Leadership

Leading with a Sense of Dance

Leadership is a lot like ballroom dancing.

When you're a ballroom dancer, you need to know when you're leading.

Just like in ballroom dancing, when it's your turn to lead, you need to LEAD.

In real life, people often refuse the call of leadership.

When people refuse the call of leadership, they refuse the call due to fear, uncertainty, and doubt. A lot of times, people are afraid of failing in public because they don’t want to get fired or worse - feel embarrassed.

Many dancers never make it because they get paralyzed with fear.

The same is true when you’re a ballroom dancer. Many dancers never make it because they get paralyzed with fear. Fear that they’ll misstep, fear that the audience won’t like them, fear that they’ll lose to a team much more prepared and skilled than they are.

These anxieties and butterflies are what separates followers from leaders. The truth is that everyone facing anxiety, and nobody really cares about how you feel inside, because they’re full of their own feelings. When it’s time to lead, you either do or you don’t. And if you don’t, it’s your duty to step aside.

Risk cannot be destroyed, merely transformed

- Hoffstein

As a leader, you need to lead the team. You need to know when you’re leading. You need to be able to dance with the people you are leading. Leading with this sense of dance is important.

If you're having problem leading people, why not try dancing with them instead?