Lessons of Leadership from Miles Davis and the Kind of Blue Sessions.
By: Thomas Reibke
Tags: Creativity, Facilitation, Innovation, Transformation, Leadership

I recently watched a new biographical documentary about Miles Davis named Birth of the Cool. It reminded me of the many lessons we can take from the artistic and creative field, when it comes to leadership.

Jazz music is a commonly used metaphor in leadership — but the story of how the album Kind of Blue came about, holds such profound lessons about creative leadership that I believe is worth sharing now.

Yes! Miles Davis was without comparison a true master of his field, and it can seem completely irrelevant for earthly creatures to learn from him. But Miles was also an extraordinary creative leader and it’s partly because of how he led his band members, that he turned out such an innovator. During the Kind of Blue sessions, Miles found a powerful combination of transformational and facilitative leadership which he would continue to use for the rest of his life as a band leader to reinvent himself and create one breakthrough in music after another. And this is where any leader of any field will find inspiration.

Before we get into the lessons let’s just clarify what a biggie the album Kind of Blue is — what makes it stand out and how Miles went about it as a band leader.

A true masterpiece that changed the sound of jazz

So What is probably the most popular tune of the album.

Kind of Blue became the best selling album in the history of jazz. It became successful overnight and broke Miles into a mainstream star across America and later the rest of the world. It’s one of those records that people who say they don’t like jazz actually do like. Many will say it’s the album that got them into jazz in the first place. You can listen to the album over and over again, and it always has something new to say. It’s a true masterpiece.

The album broke with any traditions of jazz. It broke with be-bop — which was the favoured style of the time and of Miles’ own mentors Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie — “busy” tunes with a lot more structure, changes and scales. The kind of jazz which the untrained ear will find a bit tough. Kind of Blue was the opposite. The tunes had only a few changes and used only a few scales. It was called modal jazz and in many ways it was much easier to listen to. The music drew from classical composers such as Bartók and Ravel as well as blues music.

The creative process

Miles Davis and Bill Evans (who had a big role in the creation of the album.)

The creative process and where the lessons of leadership can be extracted from, was also very different from how Miles and everyone else would approach the creation of an album. Miles brought together a young and talented group of seven musicians including himself. He didn’t compose any finished tunes and he didn’t write sheets for the musicians. When the musicians arrived at the studio on March 2, 1959, they were given very open sketches and rough outlines of each tune. His idea was to capture the musicians’ spontaneity — which also meant he wanted to capture each song in the first take.

The Kind of Blue sessions became a recipe for how Miles would approach music the rest of his life — identify raw talent, give them full trust and freedom and expect them to go above and beyond. The recipe allowed Miles to keep reinventing not only his own style and genre but music in general.

Let’s take a closer look at this recipe where he is applying several ideas of transformational and facilitative leadership.

1. Look for raw talent that get it

John Coltrane during the Kind of Blue sessions.

When the drummer Tony Williams joined one of Miles’ later groups he was just 17 years old. Miles said “Creativity and genius and any kind of artistic expression don’t know nothing about age. Either you got it or you don’t. And being old isn’t gonna help you get it. Look for people who get it.” Just as Miles did with Coltrane during Kind of Blue he would continue for the rest of his life to find young raw talent. He would bring them in and support them in finding their own voice. Just as younger artists looked to Davis for guidance and inspiration, he looked to them for raw, new talent and innovative musical ideas.

If you stay too narrowly focused on merits you will only get more of the same. You will be creating a team that can only reproduce the past. Instead we should look for people who know just enough to “sit in with the band.” We should care much more about getting people who genuinely share the values we want to promote, who can apply creative thinking and curiosity to problem-solving and most importantly can bring in fresh perspectives. Either because they are younger and represent the next generation or because they bring with them a different background than the rest of the team.

And when you do manage to attract young raw talent of a different background, don’t do what every other team or organisation does — which is to as quickly as possible get them to see things your way.

2. Just enough direction

In the studio Miles basically said “I have these few ideas — let’s go!” When the musicians looked with big question marks in their eyes, all they got from him was “It should just swing.“ This is how Miles was able to get the spontaneity, creativity and imagination from his musicians. You had seven musicians playing tunes they saw for the first time in the studio, that weren’t really finished and they only recorded each tune once or twice. Obviously Miles couldn’t have created such a masterpiece with any group of musicians. And there’s a difference of talent and mastery on every team. Still the principle of just enough direction — no more no less — to get your team going will apply to any team. Some teams might need a bit more direction than others. The important part here is that a detailed plan doesn’t suggest spontaneity, creativity and imagination from the team.

3. It’s the trust that sets us free

Miles said “I know if you have some great musicians they will deal with the situation. And play above and beyond what they think they can.” This comment is striking in its similarity to definitions of transformational leadership:

“A transformational leader inspires the members of the organisation to achieve more than they thought possible.” and “Transformational leaders inspire more leaders not followers.”

And boy did Miles inspire more leaders. The list of young talents that started out in one of Miles’ bands, and went on to have groundbreaking careers for themselves is endless. On Kind of Blue John Coltrane was allowed enough space to discover his own identity and really blossomed. He quickly developed into one of the most innovative artists and band leaders himself.

The musicians play with almost total freedom on this album — “it should just swing.” It’s interesting how they create such a coherent and beautiful sound together. It’s almost impossible to imagine that there wasn’t more planning that went into this album.

A lot of leaders will say they are giving their team a great amount of freedom, but they rarely give the “don’t worry I will have your back” kind of trust, which Miles gave these musicians. Giving people freedom without trust feels more like a disclaimer of responsibility and produces stress and anxiety — not creativity.

When you couple trust and freedom with a bold ambition, people will reward you with their courage, ingenuity and they will surprise you by going above and beyond. And they will do it without the stress and anxiety. In fact, it’s more likely that it will be a joyful experience which they will want more of.

4. There are no mistakes

In a world of very little direction setting, a lot of freedom and trust, there is bound to be what we would usually call “mistakes.” But how can you call it a mistake when there is no plan and no right answer? Miles said “There are no mistakes.” If someone plays an “unexpected” note the next note will make it right. The band will make it right by playing a chord that makes the note sound good or simply allow the unexpected note to take the music into a new direction. At Pixar they have a principle called “Make each other look good,” which means that whenever someone says something in a meeting, instead of trying to find the flaws, everyone else will make it sound right by looking for opportunities and adding to it.

Listen to Herbie Hancock explain how Miles Davis would approach one of his ”mistakes.”

5. Leave your ego at the door

Off stage Miles was known for being a notorious asshole with an ego the size of a Manhattan skyscraper. But on Kind of Blue as well as in a lot of his later bands he seemed to have no problems with the other musicians taking up a lot of space. He simply enjoyed hearing them play. This is really important because when you want to become a better transformational and facilitative leader, you can no longer take credit in the same way. Others will begin to shine more. And even better they might outshine you. And that you have to be ready for.

The Lessons in Summary

Look for raw talent, that get it — diversity and culture fit over merit and years of experience.

— diversity and culture fit over merit and years of experience. Just enough direction — share the outlines of a compelling idea or vision instead of a detailed plan of action.

— share the outlines of a compelling idea or vision instead of a detailed plan of action. It’s the trust that sets us free — give people around you total freedom and trust them.

— give people around you total freedom and trust them. There are no mistakes — make others look good by seeking to understand and adding to their ideas.

— make others look good by seeking to understand and adding to their ideas. Leave your ego at the door — and let others outshine you.

Watch and read for yourself:

Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool

Miles: The Autobiography