Music can help inspire us to achieve great things, especially for those in leadership and management roles. We wanted to find out which songs and artists inspire and motivate leaders the most.
To do this, we analysed over 2,500 Spotify playlists to reveal the inspirational songs and artists that leaders listen to the most. We searched Spotify to find out which songs and artists appear most in user-created playlists whose titles feature the keywords “inspirational”, “motivational” and “leadership”.
If you are looking for some workout motivation or music that will get you through a hard day, we have the inspirational Spotify playlist you are looking for.
Eminem Revealed as the Most Motivating Artist for Leaders
Rapper Eminem comes out in first place for the song “Till I Collapse”. Leaders also find motivation from Eminem’s other well-known hits such as “Not Afraid” and “Godzilla”, which earns him the “Most Inspirational Artist for Leaders” award.
His lyrics may divide some, but this study proves that Eminem has the right ingredients in his music to inspire and motivate leaders to get their head down and power through. The following lyrics from “Till I Collapse” really captures the essence of motivation, inspiration and leadership.
“This is your moment, and every single minute you spend
Tryna hold on to it because you may never get it again.” Till I Collapse, Eminem
Matthew Channell, Director at TSW Training is one leader that admits to using Eminem as his ‘go-to’ for finding that little bit extra in the tank to get a job done:
“Eminem has been a go-to for me whenever I need to get my head down and power through that one job that’s been weighing me down for days”
Lyrics aside, the aggressive nature of Eminem’s songs seem to bring out the best in me, untapping the extra reserves and focus I need to get things done. His songs are first up in my workout and office playlists
Eminem creates moody, reflective and often angry music telling his rags to riches story. When you listen it’s easy to identify with his emotional state, finding synergy with your own issues of the day, the things you are taking on at that moment in time. When Eminem takes on the world, you do too!
For an alternative, I still think so many people are missing out on the motivation to be had from the likes of Max Richter and Hans Zimmer. Take a listen to ‘In the nature of daylight’ ‘Written on the sky’ and ‘The departure’ by Max Richter and ‘Cornfield chase’, ‘Day one’ from Hans Zimmer.”
Want to get inspired? Listen to the Top 20 Inspirational Songs here:
Methodology
- The online tool, Playlist Miner, was utilised to find the most common songs present in user-generated public playlists containing the keywords “motivational”, “inspirational” and “leadership”.
- All results are correct as of January 2021
- To produce an overall league table of popularity, the resultant lists were combined and the playlist occurrences totalled.
To view the full data set click here.
Fair Use
Feel free to use this data and research with proper attribution linking to this study. When you do, please give credit and link to www.tsw.co.uk.
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