The JAZZ LEADERSHIP PROJECT℠ (JLP) has four primary principles from which we derive a praxis (theory+practice) of jazz and a model of Collaborative Leadership. Over the short existence of this blog, we have mentioned these principles over and over. Here we outline them as a integrated set: Individual Excellence, Antagonistic Cooperation, Shared Leadership, and Ensemble Mindset. The first two focus primarily on the individual, the last two teams or ensembles.

Individual excellence is a basic value underlying the jazz aesthetic. The principle is grounded in the effort to become your best in various areas of life and work. Individual excellence is an aspiration to become better, moment to moment, day by day, month by month, and the disciplined focus and energetic effort to enact and follow a plan of action.

Why strive for excellence? For yourself and for others. Becoming better helps you to know that challenges—since excellence is most certainly a challenge—are surmountable and that improvements can be a matter of what blues idiom philosopher Albert Murray calls “self-extension.”

Challenge is fundamental to the next principle: antagonistic cooperation, an expression that comes from the hero’s journey model and archetype, which we mentioned in our inaugural post. In The Hero and the Blues Murray writes that challenges make the hero stronger, as fire helps a sword become battle-ready. “The fire in the forging process, like the dragon which the hero must always encounter,” writes Murray, “is of its very nature antagonistic, but it is also cooperative at the same time.”

In a conversation with Mr. Murray in the late 1990s, he shared more analogies to make the principle clear: sparring partners help boxers become stronger and top pitchers in team practice sessions challenge hitters in baseball to improve. Likewise, complex legal cases test the mettle of great lawyers and legal teams. Such challenges cause the potential hero to advance beyond comfort zones and to take risks. Risks may result in hits or misses, wins or losses.

Such an attitude of risk-taking is central to the challenge of entrepreneurship, for instance. And the acknowledgment of the potential or actuality of winning and losing closely ties to the blues idiom tradition. The bottom line, for this post at least, is that growth and learning are essential to antagonistic cooperation as a value. In this manner, antagonistic cooperation is a close cousin of Carol Dweck’s growth mindset.

As a principle, antagonistic cooperation smooths the way to the integration of the jazz practices of syncopation and swing during improvisation. The attitude and perspective of expecting and welcoming challenges align with practice of syncopation, which is emphasis or accenting the off- or unexpected beats. Let’s take a moment to peer into one of the fundamental jazz practices, as they are principles actualized.

Syncopation and Swing

In life and work, syncopation is being prepared for the shifts and changes that arise. Swing is a coordinated response to life, where there’s a ground rhythm and groove to depend upon so when we venture out to experiment and improvise, that bass and drum will be right there, like a carpet of support. The antagonistic part of the principle directly above is tied to syncopation, the cooperation to swing.

Together, the practices point to a robust resilience that prepares you to even be anti-fragile, where you can thrive through uncertainty or chaos. We’ll go deeper into jazz practices in future posts.

Shared leadership is a value in which the inherent leadership capacity of others—the capacity of others to work toward excellence and face challenges—is respected. Shared leadership allows for individual differences in style, approach, and background to simply be facts rather than immovable obstacles. Shared leadership also includes shared responsibility and shared accountability for common goals and objectives of a team, of an ensemble.

This stance and value is a foundation for collaboration and networks of influence in today’s less hierarchical, more matrixed organizational structures. When this principle is shared throughout a team and an organization, it becomes a part of the institution’s culture.

In jazz, shared leadership manifests in the way bands practice and perform on stage. In practice, in good to great jazz bands, artists usually feel free to speak up, comment, make suggestions. In performance, the unspoken cues of shared leadership happen at the moment, and at times certain roles even switch.

Our recent posts on Miles Davis, Wynton Marsalis and the Bill Charlap Trio gave specific instances of the enactment of this principle.

The way the bass and piano share harmonic duties and function is a general example of Shared Leadership. Further, the bass and the drums share rhythmic responsibility. The piano bridges harmonic and melodic functions and contributes to the rhythm too. These shared responsibilities demonstrate how often in teams there’s an overlap between divisions and cross-functional sharing that can be a basis for conflict or innovation, based on the perspective of the team/ensemble members and how they enact shared purpose, vision, and values.

Upon the foundation of the previous three principles rests a term coined by JLP, ensemble mindset. A good short version of this idea is the famous phrase from The Three Musketeer’s: all for one, and one for all. Each person not only strives to be his or her best but also works and plays with heightened intention for the sake of the purpose of the whole, whether a team or organization.

Ensemble mindset also works the other way, where the entire group is looking out for the individuals in the group, cares for their individual growth and welfare. This happens in action on stage by great jazz groups, as they weave individual excellence, and an embrace of challenge-for-growth, with respect for the roles each plays to make the sum greater than its parts. Indeed, an ensemble mindset works more like a multiplier effect where the collective culture field extends beyond individuals into an exponential dynamic of co-creative mastery.

As Jewel and I revealed on a recent podcast interview with executive leadership coach Amiel Handelsman, our concise description of this principle is Collaborative Co-Creation Through Collective Intelligence.

We look forward to pursuing these ideas and concepts with you even more on our journey of jazz, leadership, and high-performance collaboration.

Primary Principles of Jazz

Syncopation and Swing

Jazz Practices: In the Shed and Big Ears

Diderot and Charlie Parker: Invincible Spontaneity