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Sharna Fabiano helps individuals and teams strengthen their communication skills, from the perspective of both leadership and followership skills. Her background as an internationally touring instructor of tango partner dance gives her unusual insight into the nuances of teamwork and collaboration. We had a really fun conversation and I loved hearing her perspective - it's fresh, innovative, and thought-provoking.

Quotes from This Episode

• “In my in my world, like, if you’re not connected, then you can’t do anything together - that’s meaningful.”
• “If we’re going to have people called leaders, then we’re going to have people called the followers and those people have to be equally valued, but we have to recognize that they have a choice.”
• “And both people (leader and follower role) have to have those skills, distinct but complementary skills, in order to dance together in order to improvise, in order to have the beautiful transcendent experience that we all aim for every night and chase for years.”
• “We say that leaders ‘invite.’ That’s their main job to ‘invite’ either to invite you to dance or to invite you to take a step to the right or invite you to express this sharp accent. They’re offering a whole string of invitations, that gives you the opportunity to dance with them. And then we say that the follower ‘responds.’”
• “So when once you get to that level, the creative level, the experience is that the roles sort of dissolve.”

Additional Resources

• Leadership and Followership: What Tango Teaches Us About These Roles in Life 
• Sharna’s Website 
• Sharna’s Blog 
• Free e-book - Leadership & Followership: Social Dance Principles That Elevate Professional Relationships 

Other Resources Mentioned in this Episode

• Ira Chaleff - The Courageous Follower: Standing Up to and for Our Leaders  
• Ibram X. Kendi  - How To Be An anti-Racist 
• Robin DiAngelo - White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism 

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