The Ignorant Maestro: How Great Leaders Inspire Unpredictable Brilliance

This strained offering from orchestral conductor and leadership speaker Talgam frames leadership lessons through an orchestra leader’s perspective, peppered with examples of great conductors, such as Richard Strauss. Talgam, a grandchild of the first kibbutznik pioneers to Israel, takes an entrepreneurial and fail-fast-fail-first approach to leadership; ignorance, according to him, can be overcome by a willingness to learn from and listen to colleagues and respected mentors. Talgam admits to knowing very little about the fields in which most of his consulting clients work; this has not, to his mind, precluded him from being able to lead them toward success. His tone is encouraging—“You are the designer of your organization, the composer and the orchestrator of its flow of work”—but it is not always clear how he expects his readers to interpret his more orchestra-specific musings on topics such as “gap handling” (dealing with the spaces between notes) and creating “enough structure to sustain the flow” in the “metaphorical music of the workplace.” Though earnest and well intentioned, this book is too vague and meandering in its execution, and the musical metaphor is stretched too thin. An enthusiastic attempt that misses the mark. Agent: Lisa DiMona, Writer’s House. (May)