Dare disturb the universe: poetry for leaders
- Amber Davis
- Jan 31
- 5 min read
Updated: Mar 24
Too often in the past, hard skills were valued over soft skills in the business world. Specific, tangible, technical abilities related to a hands-on job or industry often gave candidates an edge over harder-to-define qualities like communication, leadership, and teamwork.
Shifts in thinking over the last couple of decades, however, have brought the value of these interpersonal skills to the forefront. Those in management and executive positions are now expected to develop and hone these behavioral abilities strategically, on top of exhibiting expertise in the hard skills and know-how of whatever job they’re in.
With that kind of pressure bearing down on them, those in leadership positions might not think of poetry as the most valuable use of their time.
But I would argue that poetry—reading it, writing it, and returning to it—can sharpen our minds and help us understand the world around us. Poetry can provide us with a means of expressing—in exactly the right words—what it means to be human, to feel, to achieve and fail, to love and hate, to live and die. Poetry teaches us (and perhaps this is where the skeptics among you might begin to believe) to “wrestle with and simplify complexity.”1
What leader couldn’t use the ability to do that?
In 2005, The Poetry Foundation released a first-of-its-kind scientific study of American attitudes toward poetry. The Poetry in America study found that:
Readers and non-readers alike strongly believe that poetry offers personal and social benefits. Although poetry is sometimes thought of as a marginal art, the people who read it are more connected with life and culture than those who do not. They socialize with family and friends and volunteer in their communities more frequently than do non-readers, and they participate in leisure activities—listening to music, exercising, and attending cultural events—at significantly higher rates.2
These findings paint a picture of poetry readers as more well-rounded, more empathetic, and generally happier than non-poetry readers, which, frankly, describes the kind of leader more people just like—not to mention one who’s more effective at building culture and inspiring innovation.
But perhaps more importantly, the Poetry Foundation’s study revealed that:
Poetry readers believe that poetry. . . keeps the mind sharp, helps them understand themselves and others, and provides comfort and solace. 2
Poetry keeps our minds sharp.
Ever read a poem that you don’t understand on the first pass—one you have to sit with, study, or meditate on in a quest to find the meaning that goes beyond the words arranged on the page?
Sidney Harman, the founder of Harman Industries, is quoted in The New York Times as saying, “I used to tell my senior staff to get me poets as managers. Poets are our original systems thinkers. They look at our most complex environments and they reduce the complexity to something they begin to understand.”
Poets often use fewer words, compiled in more singular constructions, than writers composing in other forms. They are discriminating in their choices, sometimes employing punctuation (or the lack thereof), space (or the lack thereof), and other non-word elements as signifiers. The words that are absent can be as meaningful as the words that are present in a poem. The composition can feel clear-cut, but have a deeper meaning that’s harder to see. It can be simple, yet inexplicably moving. A poem can be eloquent and startling and yet be, ostensibly, about the mundane.
In an incredibly insightful article in the Harvard Business Review, John Coleman notes that “business leaders live in multifaceted, dynamic environments. Their challenge is to take that chaos and make it meaningful and understandable. Reading and writing poetry can exercise that capacity, improving one’s ability to better conceptualize the world and communicate it—through presentations or writing—to others.”
A 2013 study published in the Journal of Consciousness focused on reading poetry versus prose, and revealed that different types of brain activity are triggered by each literary form.
The experiment involved participants reading from three types of texts: self-selected poetry, experimenter-selected poetry, and prose. In every measure, self-selected poetry sparked higher levels of cognition, finding that the enhanced literary awareness that comes from reading poetry of one’s own choosing:
. . . is related to increased flexibility of internal models of meaning, enhanced interoceptive awareness of change, and an enhanced capacity to reason about events.3
Poetry helps us understand ourselves and others.
The psychologist Dianna Raab wrote:
Reading and writing poetry encourages a certain interconnectedness and helps establish a sense of community between oneself and others. In other words, poetry can help us feel as if we’re part of a larger picture and not just living in our isolated little world. We learn that other people have embarked on similar journeys and have similar feelings about where they’ve been and where they’re going.4
Plus, there’s comfort and solace.
Many philosophers and thinkers—religious and non-religious alike—have promoted the idea of returning to secular literature and poetry as sacred text, to incorporate into our lives a pattern of ritual and meaning wherever that may be found.
Studies upon studies have shown that reading, writing, and listening to poetry read aloud can reduce stress, fatigue, worry, and anxiety.5 The rhythms of poetry reach primal corners of our minds in the same way a beating drum might. Metaphors and rhymes can produce feelings of familiarity and predictability, even when found in poems we’ve never before encountered—or in poems we create ourselves.
According to Arts and Mind Lab, “one study found that the brain can automatically detect poetic harmonies and patterns even when the reader had not read much poetry before. In particular, stanzas with rhymes and a regular meter, or rhythm, led to a greater aesthetic appreciation and more positively felt emotions.”5
the mist has cleared—
It’s like some new life:
You have no stake in the outcome;
You know the outcome.
-Louise Glück, Averno
A sharp intellect, an awareness of self and others, a mind at ease…these hallmarks of great leadership can be harvested from great art. If you’re looking to cultivate these qualities in yourself, whether for career development or personal satisfaction, consider looking to poetry. You may find yourself pleasantly surprised.
1. John Coleman, The Benefits of Poetry for Professionals, 2012
“Dare disturb the universe” comes from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot
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