Take lead with music lessons
Media, business and arts leader Kim Williams has drawn lessons in leadership from a life of music-making, starting with the art of listening.
The former Foxtel and News Corp Australia boss said Australia's political system was broken, dominated by party apparatchiks and needed urgent attention to ensure public policy was conceived, tested and applied through rigorous and informed debate.
Using examples of the former Labor government's botched media regulation and mining tax policies, Mr Williams said political and business leaders could take more cues from listening better and formulating policy through better processes.
Australians were far better at giving criticism, rather than receiving it, he told a WestBusiness Leadership Matters breakfast at the Hyatt Regency yesterday.
"Our inability to receive criticism is matched only by our inability to give criticism in a manner that is thoughtful, caring, constructive and nourishing," he said.
Never was the imperative to listen more profound than the present as the internet drove the most dramatic shift in power in human history from producers to consumers.
Like King Canute, neither governments nor corporations could hold back the tide of "this furiously strong levelling agent", he said.
Mr Williams, sacked last year as News Corp Australia chief executive by Rupert Murdoch, had entered business through the arts as a young composer, clarinet player and producer.
He has been chairman of the Sydney Opera House Trust and chief executive of the Australian Film Commission and Musica Viva.
He said music imposed discipline, concentration and opened the ears, all valuable leadership skills.
Very few things were as good for children's development as music, which activated neural pathways more than any other human activity, he told WestBusiness after the breakfast.
"To do music well requires a huge amount of discipline, it requires concentration, practice and all the sorts of tools required to work in other areas," he said.
"I think music also teaches you about something I am increasingly concerned about, that we are increasingly living in a society that is bad at listening. I think music teaches people to listen.
"You can't play music with other people without listening. It inducts you unto the necessity of close listening and paying close attention.
"Modern leadership is very much about being the leader of a team. It is a team sport. Teams only function well from a position of common respect and from people listening to each other.
"Churchill said it takes courage to stand up and fight but it also takes courage to sit down and listen."
Mr Williams, in Perth for the launch of his book Rules of Engagement, said the arts should be central to the school curriculum to liberate creativity in people across all fields of endeavour.
(Music) inducts you unto the necessity of close listening and paying close attention. " Kim Williams
