Music

Music is present in all societies and omnipresent in all postindustrial societies. It pours out of alarm clocks, televisions, and car stereos. It is an essential element at sports events, parades, and most religious services. It is even played in supermarkets and restaurants. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the United States had approximately 240,000 jobs for musicians (defined as instrumentalists, singers, music directors, composers, and arrangers) in 2000. This number, however, does not reveal the enormous economic, social, and cultural impact of music. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, the value of audio and music video products shipped by U.S. manufacturers exceeded $12.6 billion in 2002 (this is down from a high of $14.6 billion in 1999). Recent studies have also shown that approximately 45 percent of U.S. households have at least one member who plays a musical instrument and that the average teenager or adult in the United States listens to almost twenty-five hours of radio per week.

Given the endless ways in which music is used, one should not be surprised that a wide variety of leadership roles exists in the music world. Leaders in the music world include executives of multinational corporations, engineers who design the latest gadgets, musicians who lead religious rituals, elementary school music teachers, disk jockeys who have the ability to sway public taste, directors of such agencies as the National Endowment for the Arts and Parent's Music Resource Center, and philanthropists.

Despite this variety, all leaders in the music world—like leaders in any other field—face the same two challenges. First, they must develop a clear vision; they must understand what they are trying to do and why they are trying to do what they're doing. Second, they must develop an appropriate strategy for their vision; in other words, they need to know how they will achieve their vision. We will examine four case studies; each examines a specific leadership role in the world of music.