Harvey Seifter: Reimagining Leadership Through Creativity and Collaboration
What if some of the most important skills we need to navigate an uncertain future are the very ones we've traditionally associated with the arts?
Creativity. Curiosity. Listening. Improvisation. The ability to see beyond what's familiar and create something new together. For Harvey Seifter, these aren't simply artistic qualities. They're essential leadership capacities—and ones he's spent decades helping people and organizations develop.
Where the Arts Meet Leadership
Harvey's career bridges two worlds that are often treated as separate: the performing arts and organizational leadership.
A classically trained musician, Harvey spent 25 years leading distinguished arts organizations, including the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and San Francisco's Magic Theatre. He witnessed firsthand what becomes possible when talented individuals learn to listen deeply, trust one another, and contribute their unique strengths toward a shared vision.
He later brought those insights into leadership development, working with organizations including GE, IBM, and major universities to explore how arts-based experiences can strengthen collaboration, communication, and innovation.
Harvey is also the author of Leadership Ensemble: Lessons in Collaborative Management from the World's Only Conductorless Orchestra, which explores what leaders can learn from an orchestra that creates extraordinary results without relying on a traditional conductor.
Creativity Is a Leadership Practice
Through his work as founder of the Art of Science Learning, Harvey has explored how the arts can help people develop the mindsets and skills needed to solve complex problems.
His work challenges a familiar assumption: that creativity belongs to a select group of people.
Instead, creativity is something we can cultivate through experience, experimentation, and a willingness to approach challenges differently.
This perspective feels especially relevant today, when so many of our established approaches to leadership and problem-solving are being called into question.
If we want different outcomes, we need to become more willing to question our assumptions, consider unfamiliar perspectives, and make space for ideas that haven't yet taken shape.
That requires more than intellectual understanding. It requires practice.
The Power of Creating Together
One of the most compelling threads in Harvey's work is the relationship between creativity and collaboration.
In an ensemble, no individual creates the full experience alone. Each person brings their own perspective and abilities, while remaining responsive to everyone else. There's a powerful leadership lesson here.
We don't have to have all the answers. We don't have to be the smartest person in the room. And we don't have to approach every challenge as something to overcome independently.
Sometimes our greatest contribution is creating the conditions for other people's ideas, talents, and perspectives to come together.
The possibilities expand when leadership becomes less about control and more about what we can create together.
A Voice for the New Paradigm
At NUMA, we believe that meaningful change begins with connection and grows through courage, creativity, and collaboration.
Harvey's work brings these ideas into focus in a practical and inspiring way. His experience reminds us that creativity isn't an extra skill we turn to when everything else has failed. It's part of how we learn to lead, adapt, and build a different future.
We're honored to welcome Harvey as a thought leader at The Courage to Be: Leadership for the New Paradigm, where we'll explore what becomes possible when people from different disciplines come together to challenge old assumptions and imagine new ways forward.
Because the future won't be created by one person, one perspective, or one way of thinking.
It will emerge through what we're willing to discover and create together.
About Harvey Seifter
Harvey Seifter is a pioneering leader at the intersection of creativity, collaboration, and organizational innovation. A former arts executive and founder of the Art of Science Learning, Harvey has spent decades exploring how the arts can transform the way people think, lead, and work together. Drawing on his experience leading renowned arts organizations and developing innovative leadership programs, he helps individuals and organizations unlock creativity, strengthen collaboration, and discover new possibilities for the future.
Harvey Seifter will join us at The Courage to Be on October 17, 2026 at Bronxlandia in the South Bronx.
