Tina, What’s Leadership Got to Do with it?
Tina, Tina Turner, Anna Mae Bullock died on May 24, 2023. Much has appeared since then about her: her wondrous musical talent, her passion for both working and living, and her deep personal struggles. I, as the Hammer would say, ‘can’t touch’ that. I have, however, pondered at length since her death who she was to me over so much of my life.
I came to her relatively late (in my early 20s). Her work combined with that of others to form a sort of personal box set of music by powerful singers who happened (??) to be women. She joined Aretha Franklin, KoKo Taylor, and Janis Joplin. Each one a lioness. Each one roaring from the depths, their own and ours collectively. Wails born of vulnerability and pain pulsating from torrents of desire and hope. Resounding dedication to love. Bolts of emotional truth fired into the universe.
Images across time. An aging Aretha at the Kennedy Center honoring Carole King with a rafter and soul rattling diva performance of Natural Woman, a performance that had King literally beckoning the performance of her hit song toward her, gesticulating euphorically to pull Miss Franklin’s performance of it to herself. Koko growling her vintage Koko Taylor growl in Hound Dog-- pure lioness, powerful and feminine. Janis, the Port Arthur outcast, repeatedly all but driving her leg through the stage as she blew the doors off the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival (and the world of rock) with Ball & Chain done as only Janis Joplin could do it. Hear them roar.
And Tina. Commanding stages before as many as 150,000+ fans. Commanding with her music, her movement and with her presence, a presence born of the depth of her experience and her commitment to her craft and to her audiences.
Resilience? A word often used too casually, too easily these days. How about outright “ferocity of spirit”? Or “indomitability”? Of accepting the reality as it had unfolded and yet defiantly envisioning something better and clawing toward it? Just like Proud Mary, “And I never lost one minute of sleepin’. Worryin’ about the way things might have been.”
Her search for truth, for centeredness and for love pulled her forward… her desire ‘to be about it’, ‘to get on with it.’ She would go where she needed to go to get to a better future: outside— find the right manager, construct a band, develop a sound and inside-- redefine herself to herself on her own terms and the Baptist child would become a Buddhist adult… and she invited us along to share in her journey, every note of it.
What leader might ever aspire to do more with his or her work—or life… or to do it as well, for as long, or for as many?
“You’re simply the best…”