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The Tango Waits For You is a 3-part documentary series that tells the story of the first year of building a brand-new tango community in Long Beach, California. It’s both my story, of losing a dream and finding it again, and it’s also a story of dozens of people coming together by chance in a way that feels like it was truly meant to be. It’s a story full of friendship, connection, trust, and discovery, all the things we seek together on the dance floor. Being together in person is so important right now. Whether you dance tango or not, I hope you enjoy these episodes.

Episode 3: Community -  We start teaching two simultaneous classes, add a monthly práctica, and the group dynamic takes on a life of its own.

Episode References

Altar Milonga: Night of Spirits - Monday, Nov. 3
https://www.sharnafabiano.com/tango

Tango Resources & LB Tango Schedule
https://www.sharnafabiano.com/tango

Altar Society Brewing & Coffee Co.
https://altarsocietybrewco.com/

Mike Cokley, Altar Society General Manager
[email protected]

Support the show

*
Connect with your host Sharna Fabiano
https://www.sharnafabiano.com

Order the book: Lead & Follow
https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Follow-Dance-Inspired-Teamwork/dp/1646632796/

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The Tango Waits For You is a 3-part documentary series that tells the story of the first year of building a brand-new tango community in Long Beach, California. It’s both my story, of losing a dream and finding it again, and it’s also a story of dozens of people coming together by chance in a way that feels like it was truly meant to be. It’s a story full of friendship, connection, trust, and discovery, all the things we seek together on the dance floor. Being together in person is so important right now. Whether you dance tango or not, I hope you enjoy these episodes.

Episode 2: Altar Society -  Partnership with a local venue provides an opportunity for Long Beach Tango to expand and grow.

Episode References

Tango Resources & LB Tango Schedule
https://www.sharnafabiano.com/tango

Altar Society Brewing & Coffee Co.
https://altarsocietybrewco.com/

Mike Cokley, Altar Society General Manager
[email protected]

Support the show

*
Connect with your host Sharna Fabiano
https://www.sharnafabiano.com

Order the book: Lead & Follow
https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Follow-Dance-Inspired-Teamwork/dp/1646632796/

Support the Show!
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1735834/support

Send Fan Mail by Text!

The Tango Waits For You is a 3-part documentary series that tells the story of the first year of building a brand-new tango community in Long Beach, California. It’s both my story, of losing a dream and finding it again, and it’s also a story of dozens of people coming together by chance in a way that feels like it was truly meant to be. It’s a story full of friendship, connection, trust, and discovery, all the things we seek together on the dance floor. Being together in person is so important right now. Whether you dance tango or not, I hope you enjoy these episodes.

Episode 1: The Dream -  After being retired from tango for seven years, Sharna meets four locals at a coffee meetup who want to learn to dance.

Episode References

Tango Resources & LB Tango Schedule
https://www.sharnafabiano.com/tango

Altar Society Brewing & Coffee Co.
https://altarsocietybrewco.com/

Mike Cokley, Altar Society General Manager
[email protected]

Support the show

*
Connect with your host Sharna Fabiano
https://www.sharnafabiano.com

Order the book: Lead & Follow
https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Follow-Dance-Inspired-Teamwork/dp/1646632796/

Support the Show!
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1735834/support

Send Fan Mail by Text!

In this episode, Sharna shares her own history and experience with tango as a social dance form. It’s a reverse interview with Actor and Director Dan Istrate, who has been a guest on the show twice before. They talk together about Sharna's discovery and rediscovery of tango, and about what makes tango so compelling for so many people.

• “There’s a weight within this dance, within this concept, that speaks for itself.”
• "Tango comes like a revelation in one’s life and you just know it."
• "There was some kind of way that this particular form was changing me on all levels and that’s what made it feel so necessary and inevitable."
• "You bring yourself to it and it's scary in a way but then it's so beautiful when you really connect."

More with Dan Istrate

S3 E3: Connected Social Conversations – Dan Istrate
https://leadfollow.buzzsprout.com/1735834/episodes/14781194-connected-social-conversations-dan-istrate

S1 E15: Lead/Follow Relationships in Live Theater Performance - Dan Istrate
https://leadfollow.buzzsprout.com/1735834/episodes/9621693-lead-follow-relationships-in-live-theater-performance-dan-istrate

Connect with Dan Istrate
www.danistrate.com

Support the show

*
Connect with your host Sharna Fabiano
https://www.sharnafabiano.com

Order the book: Lead & Follow
https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Follow-Dance-Inspired-Teamwork/dp/1646632796/

Support the Show!
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Dr. Maike Kugler shares her research on followership as voluntariness, a specific way of understanding followership behavior. She also speaks on the need to both expand and deepen followership research to account for a wide range of cultural contexts, variations of language and meaning, and relational dynamics, in order to fully understand the phenomenon of followership in organizations and beyond. 

• “[Followership] is not something that’s defined in a book, but it’s something that happens between people. It’s a social thing. So it really depends on the expectations that both parties have.”
• “Followership in one situation can be different than followership in another situation.”
• “Culture and context are most underrated in current followership research.”
• “I’d like to see articles that define what followership means in that article, a wider range of methods, more exploration of foundational understanding, and all of that in a more context and cultural sensitive mindset.”

Episode References 

"The (In)voluntary follower," Martin Blom and Mikael Lundgren https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1742715019888078

"Following the beaten paths: a systematic literature review of followership behavior," Maike Kugler and Ruth Sims 
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/jmd-10-2024-0359/full/html

S1 E4 – Influence of Followership Behaviors on Organizational Success - Ruth Sims
https://leadfollow.buzzsprout.com/1735834/episodes/8516582-influence-of-followership-behaviors-on-organizational-success-ruth-sims

 S3 E6 - The 4 Tiers of Followership - Eric McDermott
https://leadfollow.buzzsprout.com/1735834/episodes/15254928-the-4-tiers-of-followership-eric-mcdermott

Connect with Maike Kugler

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-maike-kugler

University profile: https://www.ehip.eu/hochschule/team/professoren/prof-dr-maike-kugler/

Support the show

*
Connect with your host Sharna Fabiano
https://www.sharnafabiano.com

Order the book: Lead & Follow
https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Follow-Dance-Inspired-Teamwork/dp/1646632796/

Support the Show!
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1735834/support

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Dr. Karen Perham-Lippman shares her research on destructive leadership patterns in the tech industry, and the response of various types of positional followers in those companies. Her findings include the behaviors of Challenger followers and their communities of coping that give rise to positive acts of self-restoration and collective resistance.

• “Challengers were revealed not just as individual followers who wanted to resist destructive leadership as part of their personal integrity or their moral belief about a thing but as a social process.”  
• “If you can find a group of folks who can help you sort out the true from the false and help you acknowledge that what you’re experiencing is real, then that community of coping is not just about coping, but about giving you the agency to do something about it.
• “You see over and over and over that performance outcomes and efficiency goals are being prioritized over employee well-being.” 
• “Destructive leadership is a genetic mutation that’s a disease in an organization. It’s toxic. It spreads like a virus. You can’t let it do that.”

About Karen

Dr. Karen Perham-Lippman serves as Senior Manager of Global Inclusion and Belonging at Otis Worldwide Corporation. As a pracademic and mission-driven business strategist with nearly fifteen years of demonstrated strategic and process thinking results in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), ESG, and social impact, she has worked with nonprofits, state government, municipal clients, and businesses across diverse industries and sectors globally. She currently serves as Co-President of the League of Women Voters South Hampton Roads in Virginia and was appointed to the State League’s DEI Committee. 

Karen is a Certified Diversity Professional and holds a certificate in designing equitable courses from the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE). She earned her Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Organizational Leadership and Business Management from Eastern University, where she received the College of Business and Leadership's 2025 Student Service Award presented to a graduating student who has exemplified the college and doctoral program's ideals of leadership and scholarship on and off campus through significant contributions to the field. Karen’s scholarship is published with Ethics International Press, Emerald Publishing, Forbes, Merits International Journal, and SAGE Publishing. Her forthcoming book, Bridging Generations: Transformative Intergenerational Leadership and Followership, will be available from Emerald Publishing in Spring 2026.

Episode References

ILA Global Conference in Prague

Connect with Karen

LinkedIn - for general connections

ResearchGate – for research updates or to collaborate 

Support the show

*
Connect with your host Sharna Fabiano
https://www.sharnafabiano.com

Order the book: Lead & Follow
https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Follow-Dance-Inspired-Teamwork/dp/1646632796/

Support the Show!
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1735834/support

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Chris Monö is an author and consultant based in Sweden known for his innovative concepts of "natural followership" and "collaborationship." He has spent nearly two decades exploring leadership and followership from a follower’s perspective, and in this episode we discuss several of the powerful ideas in his new book, Why We Follow: Natural Followership in a World Obsessed with Leadership.

If you missed the first interview with Chris back in Season 2, I strongly encourage you to go back and listen to that one first, since it provides a lot of background and will make this new episode more intuitive and useful.

• “Most people just want a group to work, and that’s a group with a shared objective, working together to achieve a goal. When you have a group like that you don’t need someone to guide them.”
• “While we can try to manipulate people into obeying us, true followership is always in the hands of the followers.” 
• “It’s the group that’s supposed to make things happen and they just use the leader as a tool to get there and I think we need more of that mindset because that’s really what a democracy is.” 

Episode References:

Why We Follow: Natural Followership in a World Obsessed with Leadership, by Chris Monö
https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Follow-Followership-Leadership/dp/9198847325

 S2 E21 - Natural Followership - Christian Monö
https://leadfollow.buzzsprout.com/1735834/episodes/13838983-natural-followership-christian-mono

 Global Followership Conference
http://www.followershipconference.com

Support the show

*
Connect with your host Sharna Fabiano
https://www.sharnafabiano.com

Order the book: Lead & Follow
https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Follow-Dance-Inspired-Teamwork/dp/1646632796/

Support the Show!
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1735834/support

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Thomas Rieser is the owner of Nou Tango, a tango studio in Berlin, Germany that just celebrated its 20-year anniversary. In this episode, he shares his perspective on how simple yet powerful tango exercises, can be shared outside the world of social dance in supportive group settings to bring healing and joy in surprising and delightful ways.

Over the past 20 years of teaching and organizing, Thomas has developed a focus on combining the individual development of each student with the requirements of a group. The individual person is at the center, and at the same time he encourages an active effort of everyone involved to create a social culture. He sees this as a reflection of the core, heart and potential of tango.

• “[Tango] is something that touches you emotionally and at the same time you don’t really know why.”
• “People see something [that] they don’t know exists, which is physically, spatially, and emotionally connecting to one another and being able to move in a way that is just magical.” 
• “I don’t think it’s magical. I just think the body can do much more than the mind allows it.”
• “Being in a group setting where you open yourself and be present, your body takes over, and when you let your body take over, you can grow.”

Episode References 

Nou Tango Studio
https://noutango.berlin/ 

Tango Connects Conference
https://tango.connects.berlin/

 S4 E1 - Leading & Following in the Tango - Veronica Toumanova
https://leadfollow.buzzsprout.com/1735834/episodes/16416925-leading-following-in-the-tango-veronica-toumanova

"Efficacy of Tango Argentino for Cancer-Associated Fatigue and Quality of Life in Breast Cancer Survivors: A Randomized Controlled Trial"
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37296883/

Connect with Thomas Rieser

FB: https://www.facebook.com/Thomas.Rieser

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-rieser/

Support the show

*
Connect with your host Sharna Fabiano
https://www.sharnafabiano.com

Order the book: Lead & Follow
https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Follow-Dance-Inspired-Teamwork/dp/1646632796/

Support the Show!
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1735834/support

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Ashton R. Cooper is an assistant professor of higher education in the School of Education at the University of Cincinnati. In this episode, he shares his research on the participation of White activists in the South in the Black-led Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, as well as insights into the lead and follow role switching of White activists from a recent paper titled "Antiracist followership: rethinking social justice leadership in education."

Ashton's research and teaching seek to disrupt educational practices that are harmful to individuals and communities, and to empower practitioners and scholars alike to imagine and work toward equitable and inclusive futures. Doing so, he infuses his coursework with lessons in leadership and followership to model reciprocal and community-oriented learning.  As a researcher, he uses historical and narrative methods to understand and explore followership as it relates to disrupting systemic oppression and building diverse justice-oriented coalitions.

• "In the case of my study, it really positions White activists as followers of the civil rights movement."
• "In the study of leadership as a whole, not only do we become romanticized with leadership in general, we fall back to this idea of great men, and the notion of great men being that of those men who are forged in whiteness."
• "It is less about what we can do to lead the charge but instead turning to the people who are being affected and ask 'how can I be of service to you?'"
• "Learning how to put [yourself] in other people's shoes is really important to the act of followership."

Episode References

• Ashton R. Cooper (2024) Antiracist followership: rethinking social justice leadership in education, Whiteness and Education, DOI: 10.1080/23793406.2024.2433952 
• Helena Liu, Redeeming Leadership: An Anti-Racist Feminist Intervention. Bristol University Press, 2021
  https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/redeeming-leadership
• Robert M. McManus and Gama Perruci, Understanding Leadership: An Arts and Humanities Perspective, Routledge, 2015
  https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Leadership-arts-humanities-perspective/dp/0415728738 
• Say Burgin, Organizing Your Own: The White Fight for Black Power in Detroit, NYU Press, 2024
  https://nyupress.org/9781479814145/organizing-your-own/

Connect with Ashton Cooper

Email: [email protected]

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashton-cooper-phd-13595816/

Support the show

*
Connect with your host Sharna Fabiano
https://www.sharnafabiano.com

Order the book: Lead & Follow
https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Follow-Dance-Inspired-Teamwork/dp/1646632796/

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Tango artist Veronica Toumanova shares her insights from 20+ years of learning, dancing, and teaching tango in both roles, how tango social dance communities are evolving in Paris, Europe, and beyond, and what tango has to teach about leading and following possibilities in life and work. 

Veronica has been dancing tango since 2000 and actively teaching and performing since 2007. She has Russian origins, but started dancing tango while living in The Netherlands. She has worked with different partners, performing and teaching in France, Sweden, Norway, UK, Italy, The Netherlands, Cyprus, Greece, Germany, Czech Republic, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Switzerland, Canada and USA. Veronica is an elegant dancer with a strong personality and a refined sense of music. She has extensive knowledge of both the follower and the leader’s role and is especially known for her in-depth technique classes. She is also a popular tango blogger, her essays on tango are translated in eighteen languages and she has recently published the second volume of her “Why Tango” essay collection.

• “Tango puts you into a context where you have to revise this understanding [of lead and follow] and realize that it is not about command and obey but it is more about having a conversation.” 
• “In tango, you learn that true leadership is way more about listening and understanding the other person… and following is way more about taking a deliberate decision to collaborate with your leader.” 
• “The real question is ‘how can we remove the violent component of what we now understand as leadership?’” 
• “I think we as a humanity have misunderstood following, because following for me is flowing. I flow intuitively with whatever the situation is creating in me as a response.”

 Episode References

Tango Connects Conference
(Organising Team: Thomas Rieser, Veronica Toumanova, Juliana Thutlwa, Almut Knauß, and Stefan Knauß)
http://tango.connects.berlin/ 

Thinking Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman
https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555

Connect with Veronica

Website - https://verotango.com
Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@verotango
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/veronica.toumanova

Support the show

*
Connect with your host Sharna Fabiano
https://www.sharnafabiano.com

Order the book: Lead & Follow
https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Follow-Dance-Inspired-Teamwork/dp/1646632796/

Support the Show!
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1735834/support