Leadership requires a complex set of skills, whether learned or innate. Professors of history or math become university presidents. Doctors of medicine become hospital presidents. Advanced education and experience doesn’t always assure one’s ability to lead. The success of any enterprise, it would seem, is dependent on a leader's ability to coalesce a bunch of people around a clear shared vision. And this is regrettably difficult to measure or predict...

One needs only ask the faculty & staff at the North Carolina School of the Arts, where a conductor was hired as Chancellor. I think most would call it a failed experiment (although he is still there) - strong in the idea department with a conductor's vision but actual management of projects & staff is a different story altogether. In this case, at least, a successful conductor's leadership style does not translate to a successful administrator.

I've seen so many different chemistries of conductors and managements. It truly depends on the individual personalities,the collaborative personalities, the structure of the organization, the community, the demographics, the education system for the young audiences and the surrounding businesses in the communities. You'd be surprised which cities have new concert halls and packed houses for their concerts, and those which should and do not.

Y'all need to stop wasting time with these orchestral folks and start studying choral conductors instead. :)

In all fairness sometimes it really depends on the conductor what the outcome of the music will be.