In my recent research into organizational structures, one of the most curious elements I found was how leadership positions change in relation to organizational size. As organizations move from small to large, their CEO’s tend to possess less direct arts experience. Immediate reflection on this datum elicits an obvious response: of course! The demands of the job become so intense as to preclude growth and involvement in the art form itself (and that this is understandable and okay). Is it okay? How does this happen?
In the arts sector one constantly hears that there’s a crisis in leadership, not only in the present, but in the pipeline as well. Even assuming that some of this perception is only noise, there are problems in senior leadership, and the reasons are multiple and complex. Let’s start with the one I introduced in the first paragraph here.
As a performing arts organization is born, the central figure is typically the artist, who assumes the role of the artistic director. As the organization moves through its start-up phase and begins to grow, a managing director is sought. This establishes the duality in leadership that is so unique to the performing arts. In a majority of cases the managing director was drawn to h/her profession because of significant personal involvement in an art form. Sadly, however, from the point a managing director assumes h/her new role, the field insists that h/she forget that h/she ever had skills and/or a deep understanding of the organization’s art form. S/he is allowed to be “passionate” about the art, that’s all. This expectation becomes manifest to avoid obvious conflicts between the artistic and managing directors, but interestingly it sows the seeds for future problems, if not failure.
For one, the managing director sustains h/herself for years on the energy of the company, the proximity to the art form. H/she is passionate and supportive, but as time goes by, h/she realizes that h/her skills and understanding of contemporary issues in the art form are waning, and irretrievable. However, as h/her career may grow, permitting jobs at larger organizations; and as the organization grows, the managing director is often called on more frequently to make artistic decisions. The artistic director may not live in the city, may only be in residence for 15 weeks, may be splitting h/her time between a number of positions. The managing director knows the organization’s audience well, and must supervise the planning of seasons. H/she has considerable influence on choices and day-to-day decisions that affect artistic issues and quality. And, all this must be done effectively, but also so that it doesn’t look like h/she is doing it. However, the disconnect between former deep experience in the arts form and present day artistic decision making becomes wider and wider, raising questions about the artistic integrity of the organization.
And then there are managing directors who have never had any involvement in the arts at all — an interesting topic to take up in the future.
7 responses to “Leadership in Arts — Part 1”
I’m paraphrasing from memory, but Catherine Wichterman wrote something insightful about this problem for orchestras many years ago: music directors have authority for programming but are seldom held responsible; managing directors increasingly assume responsibility (in the way and for the reasons you cite) but often have no contractual authority.
James; I share your conviction that the managerial balance of many arts organizations can and should be improved, but I’m not clear if you’re asserting that the division of leadership responsibility *itself* is a problem, or if you’re just saying that the division is often mismanaged? Also, I wonder if you’re casting your net far enough in search of solutions?
I don’t recognize anything unique to the arts in the tension between creative talent and business management. Every R&D-centric firm in science and technology has the same challenge, as do many advertising organizations and just about any type of firm where product innovation is part of the business model. Each of these fields and firms has its own forms of the “joint custody” problems that you identify. Their differences from arts organizations are mostly tied to their for-profit status–if for-profits don’t navigate their joint custody effectively, they fail or get bought. This selection effect produces a certain uniformity of outcomes in which the management functions almost always win, but in which real (albeit circumscribed) autonomy and authority for the talent-pool is enforced by policy and practice. The policies and practices in each organization and field may be different, but they share recognizable, underlying patterns.
To me, this generates a couple of thoughts. First, given that nonprofits are especially resistant to purchase/failure, but not to the waste and mismanagement that failure can terminate, shouldn’t they be commensurately more strongly obligated to learn from for-profits how to balance these tensions *as if* they were at existential risk by failing to do so? As stewards of public and donor funds, it seems to me that nonprofits have a moral obligation to be as prudent as possible in how they organize themselves.
Second, what exactly should nonprofits learn from the for-profits? It may be that nonprofits should not recreate the same organizational forms and practices as for-profits because those forms have been chosen to maximize profit, not mission. But if that’s true, what would an optimized, mission-centric balancing of joint custody look like? How would it manifest in different types of (e.g.) arts organizations? What would be its recurrent, underlying organizational patterns (its “best practices”)?
In other words, given the relative successes of other domains at managing these creative tensions, I naturally wonder if the “irretrievable” disconnect that you describe for senior arts managers isn’t a function, not of joint custody itself, but of bad custody planning and design? Maybe the problem is in how the incentives and responsibilities of the two roles are shaped by most arts organizations in practice, rather than the existence of two roles at all?
Hope this helps, –Chris
Does “founder-itis” apply equally to the leadership path you cite for visual arts non-profit organizations? I sense a fair amount of attention has been paid to performing arts groups (I recently read Kaiser’s The Art of the Turnaround), and my own experience in visual arts tells me that there is complementarity.
But I feel there’s a distinction between a performer who can give a stylistic stamp and an enduring, viable brand to a company and an artist whose style might become a liability for an arts center, especially one that is media-centric. That is, a particular artist’s approach may immediately put off some people, and they’ll discount the center as a result.
Dear Elaine — thanks for the reminder. I do remember Catherine talking about this at one of the Mellon Orchestra Forum meetings — maybe even at more than one. JU
Christopher – I’m not sure I agree with you here. What I’m asserting is that as managing directors drift or move further away from their expertise in the arts, they are increasingly asked to make sophisticated decisions regarding the same. JU
George — thanks very much for this comment. My area of expertise, if that, is in the performing arts, so I specifically noted this in my post. However, in reading your comment I think I disagree with your description of a performing artist “giving a stylistic stamp and an enduring, viable brand” as different from the (visual) artist who “might become a liability.” I think the performing artist’s sytlistic stamp could be just as idiosyncratic as the visual artist. JU
There are some very strong parallels to the tech world with this as well.
Fresh out of school a techie will have an IT or programming job. As time progresses (and the company grows) they move up into management with more responsibility and less time to code/network/etc. With the speed of the tech sector changes, this poor soul will be out of date in five years or less. And if this person ever wants to go back to their passion they will have a tough time.
Anyway, coming back to the Arts… I think becoming hands off is inevitable as growth (career or company) occurs. The skill sets are quite different between a real company leader and an artist/leader.