The “harp” referred to in the title of this post is a blues harp, a type of harmonica. Someone told me a few months ago that the definition of a gentleman is someone who has a harmonica — and doesn’t play it.

I knew what she meant. Used in the right way, in the right place and sparingly, a blues harp has the capacity to really lift a jazz or blues number — though I’m not sure “lift” is quite the right word. But too much, or too loud, and it can drive you insane.

I was reminded of this recently, and thereby reminded of a crucial role for leaders to play during the current pandemic. I was looking on YouTube for examples of people playing blues using a chromatic harmonica (the ones with a slide to enable you to change key). I came across some people who were brilliantly proficient in a technical sense, but absolutely awful musicians. Why? Because they didn’t stop playing. At every point where there could have been — should have been — a break, they were in there, filling the airwaves with notes. Too many notes soon become noise, and you stop listening.

The best leaders I’ve come across do not constantly interfere. They are not there “playing notes”, trying to show you how brilliant they are. Their “crucial role”, as I put it earlier, is to stay silent. I am especially impressed by those who have not specified how classes should take place online, only that they should do so where possible.

I am doing a course at one college where the tutor can decide (in collaboration with their students in some cases) what technology to use. Thus some have opted for Zoom, some Skype, others Google Meet, and so on. The Principal or Heads of Department haven’t been stipulating what technology is to be used, or how the lessons are going to be conducted. They haven’t been tempted to micromanage, to concern themselves with the minutiae.

Now, I may be giving them too much benefit of the doubt. Perhaps they are not interfering because they don’t know enough about the technology to do so. Perhaps next year the tutors will all start receiving instructions about what to use and how to use it in order to satisfy some inspection regime or other. I hope not.