Taylor Swift: A Golden Rule Leader
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Both an iconic entertainment figure and businessperson, Taylor Swift holds a unique place in the growing list of Golden Rule leaders. Click here to subscribe to the ESM weekly e-newsletter.
It would be difficult to find a CEO and an organization more worthy of a Golden Rule designation than Taylor Swift Incorporated.
Swift’s approach to leadership embodies empathy, transparency, and community engagement — qualities at the heart of the Golden Rule Leader ethos. While her environmental record is still maturing, her influence on millions and her commitment to treating fans, teams, and partners with fairness and respect make her one of the most compelling candidates for the Golden Rule Leader Award.
A comprehensive review of her highly public history finds a long and difficult-to-oppose track record of accomplishments in the realm of stakeholder management—enhancing her own returns only by creating value for her customers, employees, distribution and supply chain partners, and the community. While the Golden Rule designation does not apply specifically to the environment, it’s hard to give Swift’s carbon-intense world tours high marks for sustainability.
Because her’s is not a corporation in the usual sense, it does not publish a corporate sustainability report, leaving a lot of the analysis of her practices up to media reports. Nonetheless, her highly visible persona and public business decisions provide enough of a paper trail to substantiate this designation.
Here's our overall assessment.
Overall Average Score: 21(Customers, 5; Employees, ; Partners, 4; Communities, 4, Environment, 3.
Few cultural figures exemplify values-based leadership as powerfully as Taylor Swift. Beyond her global fandom, Swift’s career demonstrates consistent respect for fans, colleagues, partners, and communities — core principles of the Golden Rule Leadership framework: treating others as one wishes to be treated.
1. Customers – 5/5 : Building Genuine Relationships
Swift’s relationship with her fans — “Swifties” — is widely seen as a masterclass in customer engagement. Besides demonstrating her willingness to go all out for the fans at her performances who take great pains to attend, she nurtures emotional connection through handwritten notes, surprise visits, early access opportunities, and direct online interaction. Some have call her “the world’s most customer-centric artist,” according to Forbes. She stood behind her fans and pressed for fairer ticketing practices after a Ticketmaster debacle.
2. Employees – 5/5 : Respect and Recognition
Swift’s has a strong reputation as an employer and team leader. During The Eras Tour, she awarded substantial bonuses to truck drivers, dancers, and crew — some exceeding $100,000 each. Her teams report a culture of gratitude, respect, and inclusion. These actions set a benchmark for empathy-driven management in the entertainment industry, not generally known for such practices.
3. Distribution and Supply-Chain Partners – 4/5 : Strategic Collaboration
Swift’s global operations span music labels, logistics, merchandising, and retail collaborations. Analysts from SAP and Forbes have highlighted the Eras Tour as a “supply-chain marvel” for its precision, local adaptation, and partnership coordination across continents. Because of low
visibility into supplier sustainability and labor conditions in the production of her merchandise, it’s not possible to make any further evaluation, so she gets a 4.
4. Communities – 4/5 : Purpose Beyond Profit
Swift actively supports communities through philanthropy and advocacy. On her Eras Tour, she made major donations to food banks in every host city, advancing food-security and community resilience. Her music and messaging also promote inclusivity, equality, and empowerment — helping shape healthier fan communities worldwide, although a few songs on one of her latest albums raised a few eyebrows.
While impactful, her community engagement remains largely charitable rather than strategic, hence a solid but not perfect score if hers was a regular form of private or public enterprise.
5. Environment – 3/5 : Progress Acknowledged, Room for Improvement
Obviously understanding the environmental impact of her tours, Swift does appear to be making sustainability a part of her strategy. She reportedly purchased more than double the carbon credits required to offset tour travel and introduced more sustainable cotton merchandise lines. Yet, environmental analysts caution that offsets alone don’t neutralize high emissions. Her extensive private-jet travel and lack of full supply-chain transparency have invited criticism; hence the lower score.
Enterprise Engagement Alliance Services
Celebrating our 15th year, the Enterprise Engagement Alliance helps organizations enhance performance through:1. Information and marketing opportunities on stakeholder management and total rewards:
- ESM Weekly on stakeholder management since 2009. Click here to subscribe; click here for media kit.
- RRN Weekly on total rewards since 1996. Click here to subscribe; click here for media kit.
- EEA YouTube channel on enterprise engagement, human capital, and total rewards since 2020
Management Academy to enhance future equity value for your organization.3. Books on implementation: Enterprise Engagement for CEOs and Enterprise Engagement: The Roadmap.
4. Advisory services and research: Strategic guidance, learning and certification on stakeholder management, measurement, metrics, and corporate sustainability reporting.
5. Permission-based targeted business development to identify and build relationships with the people most likely to buy.
Contact: Bruce Bolger at TheICEE.org; 914-591-7600, ext. 230.
