Leadership Lessons From a Music Festival | Harison Xavier

I am trying to interpret a video I saw a few day back of a guy dancing at a music festival. 

I learned many things about leadership from this video and I would love to share it with you. 
This was at Sasquatch music festival 2009. If you have not watched the video, I suggest you to watch the video to see how one guy started a dance party at a music festival. This video have gone pretty viral in the internet. 

At the beginning of the video you saw a guy dancing alone to the music without any regards to the people around him, he is just there enjoying his moment in the sun. He is our hero, the fearless leader. 

 Our fearless leader is marketing his idea on "enjoying the moment" to the public. At watching this I am cringing and also admiring his bravery to dance in the public like that. To be honest those are some ridiculous moves and he must be drunk. Business first and ego second. He is teaching me not to care about what others think, focus on yourself. 

It took a very long 15 to 16 seconds to get his co-founder, or the second leader. The fearless leader have made his first sale. As I watch I see our fearless leader was completely alone in the beginning, What we don't see is that this might have been going on for a while as the video was take at the middle of the song. So it took our fearless leader a very long time to get his fist customer to buy his product (Enjoy the moment). 

The second guy who joins to dance is also a leader. It takes a great amount of guts to join a crazy half naked guy with a crazy idea. Go in without any fear and enjoy the moment, stay together in a mission to market the product. Also the first leader invites him as an equal partner in this endeavor.  It's a lesson  we can learn from these two leaders (Or co founders).  Soon the second leader invited is friend to dance with them. 

It took almost a minute for the 3rd man to join in this crazy idea, what I learned here is that even if you have the right guy beside you, it could take a good amount of time to convince 3rd guy.  As the 3rd man joined, 3 is a crowed! He is the early adopter or the light house customer. Treat these early adopters with care, they are your beacon. 

Once we have the early adopter here, soon they were joined with two more and from there on the rest is history. They were joined  by the early majority. Once you have your early majority from then on the everything will be lighting fast. All your work and dedication shows results once you get your early majority. 

Once the early majorities are in there is no stopping. They are joined by Late Majority and Laggards at the end of the video.  Everyone wants a peace of it. Everyone wants to join in and be part of this great moment. The once who were initially disgusted and ashamed of this ideas now here .

This could be explained with a Product life cycle figure too

Product life cycle 

Product life cycle is the progression of an item through the four stages of its time on the market. The four life cycle stages are: Introduction, Growth, Maturity and Decline. Every product has a life cycle and time spent at each stage differs from product to product.

If you look closely the entire 3 mins of the video went through the same as the above life cycle graph. 

Until the second leader joined the dance it was introduction stage, after that the third man came in and immediately joined by three others and them many more, that was the growth stage. 

At last all we could see was people running in to join from all sides just to be the part of it and not to get felt behind, this was the maturity stage. Lastly when the music stopped there were still people joining and also people who were willing to join.   

Final Notes: 

Fearless Leaders build a team of champions around them. They show the people what they love doing and invite them to be a part of it. It is not the product they are selling, it is the experience, the cult, the movement they can join in. It is what people want, be a part of some great moment. 

Marketing is no one man job, it is a group effort. If the second leader didn't join him, he would have ended up dancing alone all the way. The second leader was the tipping point to change, he was the driver for the change that happened later. 

As a leader, you have to be oozing with confidence, show some swagger and assertiveness to gain the respect of your followers. This does not mean that you should be overconfident, but you should at least reflect the degree of confidence required to ensure that your followers trust you as a leader.

Probably the most difficult job for a leader is to persuade others to follow. It can only be possible if you inspire your followers by setting a good example. When the going gets tough, they look up to you and see how you react to the situation. If you handle it well, they will follow you. As a leader, should think positive and this positive approach should be visible through your actions. Stay calm under pressure and keep the motivation level up. As John Quincy Adams puts it, “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”