Last month, I attended a flamenco performance in Madrid, Spain that truly moved me. Without understanding the lyrics, I walked away feeling like I had just experienced a deeply emotional story. That performance sparked a powerful reminder about leadership: the best outcomes don’t come from solo acts. They come from shared energy, creative improv, and mutual respect.
Flamenco Is Cooperative Storytelling
While the dancer often takes center stage, flamenco is not a solo performance. It’s a trio — singer, guitarist, and dancer — each with a distinct role to play. Whenever one of them steps forward to lead, the others settle in to support. They shift, fluidly and respectfully, each one given a chance to shine, and each one essential to telling the full story.
It’s not about hierarchy; it’s about the interplay of strengths at different moments. Isn’t that exactly what high-performing teams do?
Great Leaders Don’t Just Tell the Story — They Co-Create It.
The best leaders know how to create space for collaboration. When roles are clear and strengths are valued, a team can move with agility, trust, and purpose. According to research in Harvard Business Review, employees in high-trust companies report 50% higher productivity and 40% less burnout1. Like in flamenco, the performance improves when everyone knows when to step in and when to lift someone else up.
Leadership isn’t about owning the spotlight. It’s about building a rhythm that the whole team can move to.
Three Ways to 'Flamenco' Your Leadership Style:
- Share the Spotlight
In flamenco, each artist contributes their brilliance. In your team, this might mean assigning ownership of key initiatives based on strengths, not titles. Let the data-savvy analyst present insights at the executive meeting. Let the new hire with customer service experience shape the messaging for the next campaign. When people feel their contributions are trusted and valued, engagement soars. - Stay Attuned to the Rhythm
A flamenco trio constantly tunes into each other. In a team setting, this means reading energy levels, watching for friction, and sensing when someone needs support — or space. For example, if your team is grinding through a project, you might notice creative energy fading. That’s your cue to pause, re-energize with a fresh brainstorming session, or even shift roles temporarily to keep things dynamic. - Co-create the Narrative
Instead of leading with finished solutions, bring your team into the problem-solving. Ask them: “What’s missing from this picture?” or “What would make this experience better for the client?” Let them connect the dots in their own way. One leader I coach holds “story-building” sessions where the team maps out what success looks like from the customer’s point of view – like a reverse testimonial they are all invested in fulfilling. This creates shared purpose and alignment, just like a flamenco trio interpreting the same emotion through different roles.
Leadership is not a solo performance. It’s a rhythm built with others — an evolving story where every contributor matters. Like flamenco, when it’s done well, people don’t just hear the vision. They feel it.
_________
1 The Neuroscience of Trust - Management behaviors that foster employee engagement, by Paul J. Zak, Harvard Business Review. https://www2.mvcc.edu/shn/pdf/presentations/neuroscience-of-trust.pdf
*** Subscribe for more tips on leading highly engaged and committed teams. If you have a story about how you wove collaboration into your team or are still struggling to, I’d love to hear your story! Book a call with me or send me an email.***
Carrie Tuttle is the lead coach, speaker and founder of Team Mojo, a firm that works to ignite engagement and commitment in teams alongside purpose-led business leaders.