 It's a difficult concept leadership and so to try and make it as concrete as possible at least to get started Let me let me provide you with a with an expression or a metaphor that I think begins to capture the subtleties and the difficulties involved in the notion of leadership It's the expression of a textu to tango and tango itself as an expression of what or a metaphor of what? Leadership is about at least when it happens well And so imagine you have a dancing space, which is quite crowded. We have quite a few couples which are dancing tango together And you as a couple are in the midst of that dancing space and you have to find your way through the space You want to dance together? There are other couples there so in a sense It's like other couples which are present opportunities also threats You have to find your way some places will open up to dance other ones will close down I think that that is a metaphor what it is to be a university that is in the middle of Society as it were that has other universities with which it's competing collaborating. There are social actors There's a broader domain within which it has to excel as as an organization now What what this means in terms of what it takes to tango? Became clear for me because I actually happened to love to dance tango. I'm not a good dancer I'm a lousy Dancer and this is not to to be an sort of act of self-modesty in the in the framework of this of this meeting I'm not a good dancer. My partner is and Because she's a good dancer. She can compensate for a lot of my my faults And so my tango teacher wasn't particularly happy with me So what he invited me to do was to dance with someone else who didn't who hadn't danced with me And so who wouldn't anticipate turned out to be a dancer who was much much much better than what I was and She was actually several levels above me and So the tango music began I walked up to her I courageously asked her to dance She stood up and then so we got ready and I began to move and nothing happened Niente nothing It was like she was a sack of potatoes and I don't know what whether she didn't like me I don't know if whether she wasn't in the mood but I had to actually push her into movement and then Dancing afterwards was a torture because it was like like I tried to swim in molasses And when the dancing ended I you know, I was just I was just thought my gosh if this is what tango is about You know, I can't I can't deal with this and in a certain sense This was a moment of reflection for me and I thought what went wrong here And what what were my preconceptions about what tango is about in what way were those preconceptions wrong? I Think that what this showed me is that in a certain sense if you compare that image of my you know That failed tango to the to the image of the tango couple that is you know effortlessly dancing through the space You would think that that second example of the couple who which is effortlessly dancing through the space and Navigating its position within a complex field that what you have is a guy there who is the leader and someone who follows and That that precisely is because there's someone who follows and someone who leads that it's successful But in a certain sense, I think that that's not really what was what's at stake in in leadership I think that the difference between the two situations is that in a certain sense unless who follows also leads and leads by Anticipating and already being prepared to receive and to move in a certain direction Nothing will happen, which is what happened with this partner of mine who acted like a sack of potatoes And so what happens is when you have a good tango couple which are dancing beautifully Is that there's someone who leads but in the very process of leading you're also following and That who follows also leads and so in a certain sense Yes, there's a leader and there are followers, but in a certain sense at each level of the organization Who follows will also have to lead in the sense of anticipating and want to cooperate to take that organization a step further Now this is of course a metaphor Tango and so let me try and generalize it a bit to make it a bit more Concrete in terms of what it means for a large organization like Tilburg University Let me do so by drawing a distinction which is common or prevalent in common in collective action theory Which is a domain of philosophy. I happen to be a philosopher So distinction between we each and we together But that means is this the the lady and I that just couldn't get our acts together That was we each Two individuals. They're standing side by side, but not really doing anything together and The example of that couple that dances beautifully weaving in and out of the spaces of the opportunities and threats Which are available on that dancing space is we together Now it seems to me that what leadership is about is trying to articulate in a dialogue with the participants of that we together What it is that we're doing together What is it that we are about as a university in an ever-changing context which brings threats and Opportunities think of the tango example. You're you are weaving your way through a more or less crowded space Opening up possibilities closing down other possibilities. So in a dialogue with those who follow But to the extent that it's a dialogue There's also a leading which is taking place there try to articulate what we are about as an organization And what we are about as an excellent organization And that also therefore means that you have to accept the fact that it and there's a difference with that That is not merely about being able to come together and enjoy Dango, it's also the fact that in an organization there will be conflict There will be conflicted and conflicting positions about what it is that we are as a collective and what we ought to be as a collective But I think that what leadership is about is accepting that What we're trying to do is articulate what we are together and who we want to be together But also accepting that we are we each that is to say that there are different perspectives on what it is that joins us together and Wanting to have that moment of we each be part of the articulation of what we are together It seems to me that this is at the core what we are trying to do in this connected leadership Project and initiative and it seems to me that this is something that doesn't happen only at the level of the rector It doesn't only happen at the level of the board of directors This is something that happens all the way through the collect through through this organization in different ways Certainly, but throughout the organization as a whole