Rentfrow and Gosling (2003)

identified four general dimensions of

music:
Reflective & Complex (covering
blues, jazz, classical, and folk music)
Intense & Rebellious (rock,
alternative, and heavy metal music)
Upbeat & Conventional (country,
soundtracks, religious, and pop
music)
Energetic & Rhythmic (rap/hip-hop,
soul/funk, and electronic/dance
music)
Leadership Communication Music – Leadership Style Analysis

Style I : Pop
“Pop” is a term derived from “Popular” and thus Pop Music is known to be a genre of
Song
popular music. With its roots in the rock & roll style, this form can include any form of music
ranging from urban and dance to rock, country and Latin. Instruments highly used are electric
guitars, synthesizer drums as well as bass and one can listen to this form of music by listening
to songs by Britney Spears, Madonna, Beyonce, Lady Gaga and of course the “King of Pop”,
Michael Jackson (https://medium.com/giglue/top-10-genres-of-music-industry-7f19cdb177cb).

Genre & Personality

Fans of top 40 pop hits tend to be extroverted, honest,
and conventional. While pop music lovers are
hardworking and have high self-esteem, researchers
suggest that they tend to be less creative and more
uneasy. (loopearplugs.com/music-genres-personality-
type/)

Genre & Leadership Style

Pop Music is flexible since it can include any form of music. Pop music style is also having
Democratic Participative
Participative leaders encourage
participation and contributions from
group members and help group members
to feel relevant and committed to the
decision-making process. A manager who
uses participative leadership, rather than
making all the decisions, seeks to involve
other people, thus improving commitment
and increasing collaboration, which leads
to better quality decisions and a more
successful business. (Amanchukwu,
2015).
Servant Accomodative
A servant-leader focuses primarily on the
growth and well-being of people and the
communities to which they belong. While
traditional leadership generally involves
the accumulation and exercise of power
by one at the “top of the pyramid,”
servant leadership is different. The
servant-leader shares power, puts the
needs of others first and helps people
develop and perform as highly as possible
(https://www.greenleaf.org/what-is-
servant-leadership/).

Style II : Soft Rock

Song
Soft rock music is a form of rock ‘n roll that tends to produce a softer, more pleasing
sound. Pianos and synthesizers often accompany the electric guitars, which are typically
absent from hard rock (Hill, 2007). Soft rock was often derived from folk rock, using acoustic
instruments and putting more emphasis on melody and harmonies. Soft rock songs generally
tend to focus on themes like love, everyday life and relationships. The genre tends to make
heavy use of acoustic guitars, pianos, synthesizers and sometimes saxophones. The electric
guitars in soft rock are normally faint and high-pitched
(https://rock.fandom.com/wiki/Soft_rock).

Genre & Personality

So far the researchers have found that those described as
“empathisers”, who have a good ability to understand the
feelings and thoughts of others, appear to prefer music that is
romantic, relaxing, unaggressive, sad or slow such as soft
rock and some R&B.Soft rock music is often correlated with
romantic, relaxing, and mellow which are probably high on
Openness to Experience
(https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/curious/
201405/you-are-what-you-listen).
 Genre & Leadership Style
Soft rock music is highly focus on emphatic and harmony. Thus, soft rock leadership puts
emphasis on human and relationship, in the same time open to experience. Soft rock leader
encourages their followers to grow while maintaining good relationship among them. On
the other hand, their openness to experience allow their followers to be creative and
involves in important decisions. Closest leadership style with soft rock music are:

Transformational Democratic Participative

Transformational leadership is
a leadership style in
which leaders encourage, inspire and
motivate employees to innovate and
create change that will help grow and
shape the future success of the company
(https://www.cio.com/article/3257184/wh
at-is-transformational-leadership-a-
model-for-motivating-innovation.html).
Participative leaders encourage
participation and contributions from
group members and help group members
to feel relevant and committed to the
decision-making process. A manager who
uses participative leadership, rather than
making all the decisions, seeks to involve
other people, thus improving commitment
and increasing collaboration, which leads
to better quality decisions and a more
successful business. (Amanchukwu,
2015).

Same as pop style, this Leadership Style is appropriate if member of the organization has
good knowledge, skill and experience. When applied to skillful organization, it can motivate
the followers to do their best and keep them loyal.

Style III : Rock

Rock music can generally be described as hard-edged music performed with electric
Song
guitars, bass, and drums and usually accompanied by lyrics sung by a vocalist
(https://www.liveabout.com/what-is-rock-music-2898293). Rock music is a form of popular
music with a prominent vocal melody accompanied by guitar, drums, and bass. Many styles
of rock music also use keyboard instruments such as organ, piano, mellotron, and
synthesizers. Rock music usually has a strong back beat, and often revolves around the guitar,
either solid electric, hollow electric, or acoustic
(https://audials.com/en/genres/rock_music.html).
Genre & Personality

Despite the sometimes aggressive image that rock and heavy metal
music project, researchers found that fans of this style of music are
usually quite gentle. They tend to be creative, but are
often introverted and may suffer from low self-esteem.
(https://www.verywellmind.com/music-and-personality-2795424).
Classic rock fans work hard and are generally at ease with
themselves. The trade-off: They’re more self-centered than other
listeners (https://www.rd.com/culture/favorite-music-personality/).
 Genre & Leadership Style
Rock music is well known as loud, strong up beat and empowerment of musical tools. Rock
leader is passionate, hard-working and strong willed to move their follower to execute their
instruction. Their creativeness and self-centered trait make them know what, how, who and
when to do task to achieve goal. Although, they have gentle side to keep their follower in
ease. Closest leadership style with rock music are:

Autocratic
Autocratic leadership, also known as
authoritarian leadership, is
a leadership style characterized by
individual control over all decisions and
little input from group
members. Autocratic leaders typically
make choices based on their ideas and
judgments and rarely accept advice from
followers.
(https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-
autocratic-leadership-2795314)
Charismatic
Charismatic leadership is basically the
method of encouraging particular
behaviors in others by way of eloquent
communication, persuasion and force of
personality. Charismatic leaders motivate
followers to get things done or improve
the way certain things are done.
(http://teamworkdefinition.com/charismat
icleadership/)

This Leadership Style can be applied in each condition, but best applied in low motivation
and skill organization. This kind of leader is able to make thing works when it doesn’t seem
impossible. Yet, in skillful and high motivational organization, rock style leader is not really
needed.

As a follower, I prefer soft rock leadership style where I can be creative but
still mentored to give best version of me since I’m still lack of practical experience.
As a leader, I will customize my style to my follower and goal of the organization.