By leadership and leading, I mean influencing. As I suggest in my first post, it begins with understanding and respecting your various stakeholders—an audience being one of many important constituency groups. Observe and learn from them, inquire and engage them. Take the time to create trust and fortify the relationship. Also, learn to take the good with the bad and be better for it. Sustain the effort for the long term. Institutions, and therefore its leaders, should invest in their futures … [Read more...]
CONTINUED: Institutions can learn by following…and following they must, for now
January 26, 2012 by
Hi Adrienne, I appreciate your comments to my earlier post. Truly, it furthered my thinking and I hope it furthers this debate. A little call and answer below. Adrienne: “I appreciate the larger debate here about the balance between leading and serving the cultural audiences we work with in the visual and performing arts. Key to this debate is indeed striking a true BALANCE rather than swinging to one extreme or another. As 'popular' trends influence everything from programming to funding, … [Read more...]
Institutions can learn by following…and following they must, for now
January 25, 2012 by
By following, I mean observing. Institutions are not static. In fact, the best of them are living, breathing places from which there is a great deal of interactivity. Key to assessing one’s impact is to understand the nature of this interactivity at every level. By keen observation, one only begins the process of trying to suss out the importance and meaning of art and culture today. Unfortunately, many leaders operating in today’s cultural sector lack this ability. I’m presuming that … [Read more...]
