Understanding Leadership Through the Arts

This study seeks to elucidate an alternative form of leadership training—that of improvisational theater—in which acting under conditions of uncertainty, accepting offers, crafting a disciplined imagination, suspending judgment, letting go, being present and enhancing awareness skills may become learnable components of leadership development. The question was whether improvisation can transform the thinking and orientation of individuals in such a way as to make them efficient leaders. And the study found that improvisation may encourage creativity, possibility, resourcefulness and an ability to manage uncertainty and ambiguity, provided that it is appropriately applied and practiced.