About Leading with Music

Brought to you by empoweringLEADERS; authored by Mark K. House.

While there are many blog sites on both Leadership and Music, our site aims to deepen the understanding of both – and do it in the length of a song.

  • Select a post (like the one above),
  • Hit play on YouTube, Apple Music, or Spotify for the music selection
  • Read a short article about Leadership 

In less than 5 minutes, get an artist to explore further with a bite-sized leadership point as you dive into your day. Buttons below take you to the previous or more recent post to keep reading. Join us on LinkedIn to leave a comment, and subscribe below for Daily or Weekly email updates. Share your own findings about #leadingWithMusic on LinkedIn, FaceBook, Twitter, and Instagram. 

Each week we select a Band of the week to emphasize a Leadership theme. Daily we emphasize one of the empower leadership competencies (to the left here). For example, Monday will always be about engage, and Sunday will always be about renew. All include real-world best practices learned from many years of global leadership and many mistakes that you can avoid.

You can Browse or Search for music or topics of interest to you. We are always looking for new Leadership Topics or Bands to cover and welcome your contributions to those lists.  Workshops using the power of music either virtually or in person are also available.

About the Author, Mark House

Mark has been immersed in music and singing since his youth, including singing in a Boys Choir at the 1968 Methodist Church Global meeting. He also watched as his Dad returned from meetings at IBM with his “songbook”, charged up by singing at offsite meetings regularly.  He helped lead music for his high school and college Youth Groups, and was part of a Bluegrass Gospel group as the bass player for over 15 years. As he noticed the absence of music and creativity in the workplace, he wrote “musical skits” in his corporate roles at IBM, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and VeriSign.

As he transitioned from corporate roles, he co-led singing for every session of his coaching cohort at Georgetown University.  It was there he saw the power of music to get strangers and teammates to bond quickly.  Backed up by the science in Daniel Levitin’s great book This is Your Brain on Music, he began a 15-year focus on bringing music back into the workplace.

This led to offering multiple Music Makes Me workshops at Georgetown and other commercial and government organizations. He is now structuring offsite and meetings around music, and as an anthym certified consultant, can work with virtual teams around the globe. More details are here. He is recognized for his ability to find a song or build a playlist for just about any occasion and looks forward to your tune.

Our Most Recent Articles

Nov 01 2026

Freedom in Your Mind… renew your team by being unreachable?

Our offices in Crystal City were magnificent, with my boss having a great view of the city. It was a small team, so we would gather around his desk and he would engage...
Oct 31 2026

Smooth… execute the Change you keep asking others to make?

The whole concept of LeadingWithMusic is to talk about using the power of Music to Change the way we think and act as Leaders and people, taking you on a journey...
Oct 30 2026

Winning… wonder what you would build if you walked out tomorrow?

Today's story starts in a Maryland suburb with a kid graduating from high school and started at a local college. There he started working on building his first guitar...
Oct 29 2026

Europa (Earth’s Cry, Heaven’s Smile)… observe what worked before it is your turn?

So at this point, we were trying to get a staid Federal manufacturing facility to become "lean" and cost-efficient to produce commercial products. At the same time, we...
Oct 28 2026

Open Invitation… partner with the one who will push you to Change?

If you ever are asked to work a business show, my advice would be say NO. You stand in a booth and answer questions from people who are never actually interested,...
Oct 27 2026

Let the Children Play… manage the bad news before it manages you?

Being "different" was a core competency of not just me, but my boss for this season, and probably why we bonded so well initially. He could have easily selected an...
Oct 26 2026

A Love Supreme… engage the Change you want everyone else to make?

As you might have guessed from last week, despite saying we would never move to DC, by the Summer we had made the decision to make a Change and permanently leave Texas...
Oct 25 2026

All the Love of the Universe… renew your Hope with a few simple words?

"Well... we will certainly NEVER live in the DC area..."Transitioning the project from Research to FSD included my boss changing into our division, and physically...
Oct 24 2026

Everybody’s Everything… execute the demo when the demo crashes?

Hiding in the dark, they left... leaving me time to get the system up again...Having already worked multiple business shows for IBM on the Space Program, I was the...
Oct 23 2026

No One to Depend On… wonder what you learn when you stop talking?

As they locked us INTO the conference room, they took my slides...IBM had always been involved with the American government marketplace. They formed the Federal Systems...