Ottawa has no shortage of places where community gathers — hockey arenas, farmers' markets, community centres — but sometimes the most unexpected rooms hold the most powerful lessons. For one local writer, it was a church pew.
In a recent column for Ottawa Life Magazine, the author recounts sitting in a Sunday service when a childhood camp song surfaced unbidden: "Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones…" That simple, almost silly melody suddenly reframed two scripture passages and sparked a meditation on renewal, leadership, and what it takes to bring life back to something that feels dead.
Renewal Is Not a Miracle — It's a Process
The core insight is deceptively simple: renewal doesn't arrive like a lightning bolt. It comes gradually, bone by bone, note by note. A choir doesn't become a choir the moment singers walk into a room. It becomes one through rehearsal, repetition, and trust built over time.
The analogy maps neatly onto organizational life. Teams that feel stuck — drained of energy, directionless, going through the motions — rarely need a dramatic intervention. They need the equivalent of a choir director: someone willing to call rehearsal, set the tempo, and hold the ensemble to a standard without losing the warmth that makes people want to show up.
The Choir Director Model
What makes a choir work? A few things stand out. First, every voice has a part — there's no dead weight in a well-arranged choir. Second, the director listens as much as they direct; the goal is harmony, not dominance. Third, the choir performs for an audience, which means the work has stakes beyond the rehearsal room.
For leaders — whether running a startup, a nonprofit, a newsroom, or a city department — those three principles translate surprisingly well. Assign meaningful roles. Listen laterally, not just top-down. And remind people who they're doing this for.
Ottawa's Choir Culture
Ottawa has a quietly rich choral tradition. The Ottawa Choral Society, Capital UniVoice, and dozens of church and community choirs rehearse weekly across the city, from Centretown to Kanata to Orléans. These groups aren't just cultural fixtures — they're functioning models of collaborative leadership that most boardrooms would envy.
Participants show up voluntarily, contribute their best, subordinate ego to ensemble, and trust a shared vision. That's not nothing. In a city defined by institutions — federal government, NGOs, universities — the choir model offers a refreshing counter-example of how groups can achieve something together without hierarchy driving every note.
The Takeaway
The author doesn't claim to have unlocked a new management framework. The piece is more personal than prescriptive — a quiet Sunday reflection that opened into something larger. But that's often how the best leadership thinking arrives: not from a conference keynote, but from a moment of stillness where an old song suddenly makes sense in a new way.
If your team feels like dry bones right now, the message is straightforward: start with the skeleton, add the sinew, and keep showing up for rehearsal. The hallelujah comes later.
Source: Ottawa Life Magazine
