I've long believed in artists as leaders.
A great definition of leadership is: imagination on others' behalf.
This is what an artist does. She uses empathy to understand others and the world around her. He puts that experience into words, design, music, products, etc..
Bruce Springstein: A leader’s job is to embody identity for a community - to give words and flesh to elusive ideals. (Only inside a body does an ideal get to become a story.) A leader’s legitimacy, then, rests upon how deeply you can inhabit your song.
The best leaders and artists have something to say. They give us perspective. They provoke, inspire, comfort. They create a sense of community.
They inhabit their song.