Our sixth and last exemplar, who, like all the others,
exemplifies all 18 of the skills that we've been
learning about, is Bruce Springsteen.
Who is a fantastic illustration of the skills of embodying values consistently,
clarifying expectations, and creating cultures of innovation.
So it's 1999, and we're at the the Hall of Fame ceremony for
the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame, that is, in Cleveland.
And he's being inducted, Bruce Springsteen is being inducted, the E Street Band
was to be inducted about 15 years later, which was controversial.
Another story, but I wanted to put that here in the proper context.
I'm now talking about Bruce's induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
And he thanks his band, the mighty men and women of the E Street Band.
He thanks his mom, who taught him that work
was something joyous, and that could connect you to the wider world,
and allow you to express your passion for the world through your work.
His father had just died prior to his induction.
And his father, famously, if you know any of Springsteen's early work, especially,
was the source of so much of what Springsteen wrote about
in those early days of adolescent rebellion and seeking a way out.
A way out from the oppressive home environment that his father,
the brooding figure who suffered from serious mental illness,
bipolar disorder and depression, which Bruce inherited.
Getting beyond that environment and figuring out how a way to
make his way in the world was really the story of his early,
early days and his emergence as a rock artist.
His performances, Springsteen's performances,
I have attended many of them are often described as part circus,
part political rally, part spiritual gathering,
and a lifting up of arms, and part dance party.
It's all of those things, and it is a remarkable experience as testified by his
incredibly loyal and huge global fan following.
So here's a guy who's now well in to his sixties and in just the last year
recorded $260 million in revenues from his concert tour,
which was the highest last year, more than Beyoncé.
And has sold over 100 million records.
He won the Presidential Medal of Freedom and many, many,
many other honors, Grammy Awards, even an Oscar for
the song Philadelphia, which is where I'm recording right now.
And of course, Springsteen is from not far away from here, but the song, The Streets
of Philadelphia, is from a great movie of the early 90s called Philadelphia.
He is a man of incredible talent and impact.
Not often thought of as a leader though,
but that's how I think of him, at least in part.
His obsession with excellence, his incredible success,
larger share of the market than ever in his career is happening now,
unlike so many of his peers,
who are just playing the stuff that they used to play over and over.
Continuing to grow and excel in his art and inspiring others to do so.
He is truly a role model of leadership,
from the point of view of the whole person.
Let's dig a little further in, in his early days he was
obsessed with recreating the sound in his head, and
would take days just to find the right sound for
the snare drum on one particular song, as they're in the recording studio.
That kind of obsession to detail has mellowed some, over time.
And as he said not too long ago, he learned that the skill of putting it away,
of shutting it down, of resting, of moving on to other things in his life,
like the family that he ultimately created, later in his life.
The things that demand your attention, if you want them to be important,
you have to commit to those things as well.
This is something he learned over the course of his life.
Many people see him as a moral leader, a moral figure in our society today.
As an American poet in the tradition of Walt Whitman and Woody Guthrie,
whose song, This Land is your Land, is one that
Springsteen performed on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial along with Pete Seeger.
Another great American folk poet who died not too long ago.
They sang at the Inaiguration of President Barack Obama, and
they sang about freedom, which is what This Land is Your Land is all about,
and it's the epigram, a line from that.
This land was made for you and
me is the epigram, it's the beginning of one of my books.
The basis of this course, actually.
Because I see Springsteen's poetry and music as in the line of the great
American poets who spoke to our highest ideals.
And, indeed, that song, as others have suggested, This Land is Your Land,
Woody Guthrie's song, is one that might be a great anthem for our nation.
So perhaps that's something that might happen someday,
that would become our national anthem.
Because it does speak to our openness as a society, and
our cherished freedoms in embracing people from everywhere, to come and succeed here.
Springsteen was born in 1949, and his father,
as I said earlier, had serious mental illness.
Bipolar disorder, which Springsteen inherited, and indeed, in his
recent autobiography called Born to Run, which is also the name of his third
in hugely successful breakout album of the mid 70s.
In Born to Run, the book, which has been on
the New York Times Best Seller list for a long time, since it was published.
He opens up this whole story and talks about, in detail, about his early life and
his parents' struggles, which were the subject of all of his early work.
When he was about 7 years old, he was watching the Ed Sullivan Show,
which was a variety show, very important variety show from the 50s and 60s.
It was the show that first introduced the Beatles to the United States.
When he was 7 in the mid 50s,
Springsteen saw Elvis Presley perform on the Ed Sullivan show.
And said to his mom, I want to be just like that,
that was his vision of who he could become.
He saw in that as he spoke in retrospect, the idea of freedom,
of being unconstrained, to express your passion.
No matter where you came from, you could
bring the joy of living into music and share that with the world.
He understood that he could transform himself into something different,
and of course, his mother supported him.
He got a guitar from her, real cheap.
They were lower middle class at best.
And in the autobiography,
you can read about the details of how difficult their life circumstances were.
And he practiced all the time.
He was consumed by learning how to play that guitar, and
fast forward to his adolescents.
He was performing, putting bands together, playing on the Jersey Shore,
the shores of New Jersey and learning his craft.
Learning by listening on the radio, continually experimenting with new forms
of music, new genres, trying new things.
As he told an audience at South by Southwest at the festival a few years ago,
he was the keynote speaker there.
And he's speaking to young musicians and giving them his advice.
You can't conform to the formula of giving the audience
what it wants he said to them, you've gotta be changing.
So he learned how to lead a band, how to arrange
music from the people that he saw play from the people that were his teachers,
the people that he heard play on the radio.
But he wanted something big, he desired greatness.
He had that as a part of who he wanted to become.
From early in life, he wanted to change people's lives
through the tools they had available which was music.
And especially in his early days, he had extremely high standards
of performance that he let everyone working with him know.
There was a long delay in releasing one of his important
albums from 70s, Darkness on the Edge of Town.
And as he said at the time, the release of the album,
that's a single day, but the record is forever.
He thought about the impact that he was having and the legacy he was creating and
what he wanted to leave.
He partnered with John Landau, who became his manager.
Who had been a rock critic and
who famously saw Bruce play when he still up and coming.
And said, I've seen the future of rock and roll and it's Bruce Springsteen.
That is a widely, widely known quote about him.
Well they became a strong partnership and Landau, who was more erudite,
more learned, introduced Springsteen, who dropped out of college.
Billy made it through in high school.
Drop out of community college in New Jersey after just a few months.
Introduced him to books, to movies, to
American culture and literature like John Steinbeck, Flannery O'Connor.
Others that helps the emerging intellect
see his personal story in a larger social context.
That became an extremely important part of his music and of his life as he grew up.
One of the lessons that he learned along the way was as a result of an early
record deal where he paid very little attention to the contract.
He had given up create of control in his
struggles to get it back took years and years.
I'm not going to show the details on that here.
The important thing is that he learned from that experience from that real
failure to pay attention to contracts and financial obligations and
opportunities that were in those contracts.
And most importantly, creative control.
He realized that he could never give that up again.
And he claimed it and has held it since the time of that early
contract which cost him a lot in terms of time and money.
Another thing that happened was that he was emerging into his 20s into his
late 20s was he was depressed and obsessed with his past.
Which again he goes into a really enlightening detail in his autobiography.
And as many of us have written, he started psychotherapy,
which he has been using as a tool for learning and
growth his whole adult life.
He grappled with his inner demons and
has spoken about his engagement in psychotherapy as a sign of real strength
that he was willing and has been willing to seek help and
to confront who he really is inside.
And indeed you can see the evidence of that in all of his writings as well as
interviews and conversations where he talks about his music and its meaning.
This is a very self-reflective person who has
thought a lot about the events of his life and what they mean.
Well, through divorce from a marriage
in California and struggles with the E Street Band,
the people that he'd known since he was a teenager.
He eventually in the late 80s, broke up the band.
And started to have children with his band mate who became his wife, Patti Scialfa.
And as he said, learned how to put it down, learned how to make time for
these other parts of his life.
And to try being father, the kind of father that he wanted to be.
One that was different from the one that he grew up with.
He was very protective of his children, went so
far as to have his band mates sign non disclosure agreements to ensure
that they would not reveal information about his kids to protect them.
And he moved his family, he had been living in California.
He moved back to New Jersey to be in the area where he grew up.
Because he wanted his children to grow up in a place where,
well where they had roots.
When 9/11 happened.
Many of the people who were affected, who died, were from his neighborhood.
And from his part of New Jersey, Monmouth County, New Jersey.
And at one point soon after,
someone riding by saw him and rolled down the window and said, we need you now.
And Bruce responded to that.
He had been playing at some of the funerals and
creating regional arrangements for
those setting to honor the dead and their families.
But he realized, listening to his audience as he always has.
Always taking in what was important to them.
And seeing how he could use his art and his music and his performances.
To create a sense of belonging and community.
He realized that he had to write about what had happened.
And that gave rise to The Rising,
which is an album about 9/11 and its aftermath.
Since that album came out in 2002 I play one of the songs
from it in one of the opening classes of my fall semester.
No matter what I'm teaching, I play Into the Fire.
Which is a song about sacrifice and
commitment to helping other people.
And what that meant then, and what it means to all of us.
As a way to help inspire students to think about what they're doing with their lives.
Kind of like what we've been doing here in our course.
Well that conversation with the person who said we need you now, his fan.
It's just one example of the many ways in which he has tried to create real
dialogue with people that matter.
To help inform the evolution of his art.
And to, as he has said on numerous occasions, build community.
He sees this as his service.
And yet, there are songs in The Rising and in other aspects
of his music that increasingly have been pointedly political.
He didn't get into partisan politics until the 2004 election,
and he lost some of his fans because of that.
But he's continued to do that because he sees how important it is for
him to express what he sees as important in the political arena.
And what is happening in America.
Prior to the 2000s, his work was not expressly political.
Even though at every concert there were fundraising tables for various causes.
Feeding the hungry, supporting veterans, and other causes.
It is for this reason that he was awarded the Person of the Year,
the MusiCares Person of the Year.
That's another rock association, rock music association,
that raises money for artists in need.
And at that event not too long ago when he was receiving that award.
He spoke about the importance of helping
people to feel that they were glad to be alive.
And that is a great gift that his leadership has brought us.
So yes, Bruce Springsteen, great leader,
the executive of a high performing organization.
Who continues to persist in expressing hope for
humanity in the face of all kinds of injustice.
To demonstrate and to speak to resilience
in working through the many difficulties in living and to find the joy in it.
It has inspired his music and
his performances have inspired millions from around the world.
Just recently, he was performing In winter in the United States,
it's summer in Australia, he's touring Australia.
And speaking there about political events happening in the United States.
Speaking to the Australian audience about the importance of speaking up.
And resisting when things are not going as you think they should.
So he continuous to grow as a voice for
positive social change from his point of view.
To attend to both his self, his family, his career, and our society.