Ms. Shannon E. Daut

Leadership Takes Risks, Some Unproven

Posted by Ms. Shannon E. Daut, Apr 07, 2010 1 comment


Ms. Shannon E. Daut

At WESTAF, I work with a number of public sector arts agencies—mainly local and state arts agencies (SAAs). Our region has 13 SAA executive directors who are hardworking, often visionary, and valuable to their state’s constituents. But I have grown increasingly concerned about the future of public sector arts leadership because I do not see many opportunities for emerging leaders to step into these positions.

I’ve written elsewhere about the tendency for transitions in the arts to mimic that old puzzle game, comprised of squares (with one spot missing), where you had to push the squares around to form a picture or numerical set. You might also call it the “ED shuffle,” which is the phenomena of executive directors (usually Boomers) moving from ED position to ED position, never leaving an opening for a younger leader to step up. And further complicating matters, I fear that younger arts administrators are increasingly turned off by the politics and bureaucracy of public sector work. Who will lead once the seasoned leaders retire?

I recently had a conversation with WESTAF’s director, Anthony Radich, and asked him what his resume looked like when he was my age—35. He rattled off a list of ED positions at various arts organizations. I think his experience is pretty typical. Because the arts field was so young, experienced arts administrators were not available to fill open positions. They made it up as they went along and were entrusted with great organizational responsibilities at early stages in their careers.

For the most part, today’s emerging (and mid-career) administrators have not been able to benefit from an environment that would take risks on “unproven” job candidates. Part of this is likely due to the fact that arts institutions have grown to such an extent that the boards and leadership have understandably become more risk averse. But what we are doing is ostensibly punting the risk just further down the road—at some point these leaders will be heading arts organizations and institutions, yet they will have not benefited from former leadership experience.

I think there will come a time in the not-too-distant future where we embrace the fact that emerging leaders are crucial to helping the field advance in our contemporary culture. And that the most risky thing of all is to not consider the approaches to the arts that emerging leaders are espousing.

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1 responses for Leadership Takes Risks, Some Unproven

Comments

Mr. Michael W. Bigley says
April 07, 2010 at 5:09 pm

It's an interesting comparison, Shannon. At one of my previous employers, a performing arts presenting organization, there was an institutional history of climbing the proverbial ladder. In the 1980s and early 90s, it wasn't unheard of to have staff members start as box office representatives and slowly build their career to be directors of development. Granted, this evolution took 15 or 20 years.

Nowadays, this is quite different. There isn't the sense of upward mobility within organizations, and today's 20- and 30-somethings are known to job hop, looking for the next career move. I heard that the average young professional will have at least seven careers by the time they retire. We're a motivated bunch that constantly needs to be challenged and feel like there is growth potential!

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