Leading by Ear

After a long day of budgets and board meetings, Hanns-Ferdinand Müller would often sit down at the piano. For years, the switch felt almost unreal: statistics by day, free-flowing music by night.² His new book, Der Ton macht die Führung, brings the two worlds together, and the result is a warm, practical and refreshingly original guide to leading people.

The title plays on a German proverb, Der Ton macht die Musik ("It's the tone that makes the music"), and swaps music for leadership. Müller's argument fits in that one line: How we sound as leaders shapes how people follow us.

The Executive at the Keyboard

Few authors can write about both sides of this book with such authority. Müller began as an officer in the German Air Force, studying economics and organizational science at the Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg and music at Hamburg's University of Music and Theatre. He went on to the management board of Kienbaum Management Consultants, spent thirteen years at the energy group RWE, finishing as CEO of RWE Vertrieb, and served as CEO of Foris AG from 2017 to 2022. He has been an honorary professor at the ISM International School of Management since 2011, and today he coaches top executives.⁵

The musician's résumé is just as full. Müller wrote a motivational song for the German national handball team at the 2007 World Championship, and his piano concerto premiered in 2018 at the Cologne Philharmonie, with Elisabeth Leonskaja at the keyboard.⁵ Put simply, he has run the orchestra and written the score.

Ten Lessons From the Bandstand

The heart of the book is a set of ten musical leadership principles.¹ Müller draws on tone, timing, harmony, improvisation, listening, empathy, discipline, structure and creativity, and shows where each one earns its place in a leader's day.²

He brings them to life with stories from classical music, jazz, rock and pop: Leonard Bernstein on the podium, Charlie Parker and the birth of bebop, Freddie Mercury, Bruce Springsteen and Led Zeppelin, including soundchecks that turned into whole songs.² The guiding question never changes: What can a manager take from the way great musicians work together?

Müller also offers a memorable formula: leading with Hirn, Herz und Hintern. Head, heart and, literally, backside. In an interview with CNA Deutsch, he explains the third word as grounding and steadiness, the willingness to stay seated when things get uncomfortable and to stand up when action is needed.⁴

What the Reviewers Hear

The early response has been warm. WirtschaftsWoche ran a long excerpt on its management blog when the book appeared.³ Writing for the online magazine lesezeichen.rocks, J. Florence Pompe calls Müller's musical approach "a real solution" for leaders facing a younger workforce that wants coaching and teamwork more than orders. She praises how vividly he describes the way musicians work, and she is candid that the method asks something of us: honest reflection on our own behavior and a readiness to rethink old structures.²

One Amazon reader sums the book up as an inspiring guide for managers who want a livelier culture and ends with a clear buy recommendation. We agree.

A Test Worth Taking

The idea that stays with us is Müller's view of tone as a mirror. In the CNA interview, he calls a leader's tone "a test of dignity."⁴ It reveals, he argues, whether we meet the person across the table as a human being or as a function. That test applies in any language and in any meeting room.

It also connects to something we see often in development work. Leaders spend weeks polishing a strategy and a few seconds choosing the tone in which they announce it. Müller makes a persuasive case for reversing that ratio, or at least for giving tone the same care.

What We Can Try Right Away

Check the room. Before the agenda, listen for the mood. A conductor hears the orchestra before raising the baton.

Let others play first. In the next meeting, hold our own view until two colleagues have spoken.

Set the key, then improvise. Give a project a clear structure and goal, and invite the team to find its own way within it.

Replay the tone. After a difficult conversation, ask ourselves how it sounded to the other person, and what one note we would change.

For Now, in German

The book is available in German. We hope an English edition follows soon: Müller's blend of boardroom and bandstand deserves an international audience, and readers who work across cultures would find much in it to use.

¹ Müller, H.-F. (2026). Der Ton macht die Führung: Wie emotionale Intelligenz, Klarheit und Entschlossenheit dich zu einer Führungspersönlichkeit machen, der Menschen wirklich folgen. Remote Verlag. Get the book

² Pompe, J. F. (2026, March 18). Buchrezension „Der Ton macht die Führung" von Prof. Dr. Hanns-Ferdinand Müller. lesezeichen.rocks. https://lesezeichen.rocks/buchrezension-der-ton-macht-die-fuehrung-von-prof-dr-hanns-ferdinand-mueller/

³ Müller, H.-F. (2026, January 12). Buchauszug: Der Ton macht die Führung. WirtschaftsWoche Management-Blog. https://blog.wiwo.de/management/2026/01/12/buchauszug-hanns-ferdinand-mueller-der-ton-macht-die-fuehrung-wie-emotionale-intelligenz-klarheit-und-entschlossenheit-dich-zu-einer-fuehrungspersoenlichkeit-machen-der-menschen-wirklich-folgen/

⁴ Peschken, C. (2026, February 15). Top-Manager Hanns-Ferdinand Müller über Führung als geistlichen Auftrag. CNA Deutsch. https://de.catholicnewsagency.com/article/3089/top-manager-hanns-ferdinand-muller-uber-fuhrung-als-geistlichen-auftrag

⁵ Hanns-Ferdinand Müller. (2026). In Wikipedia. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanns-Ferdinand_Müller