Ms. Lindsay So

Branching Out – Nurturing Emerging Leaders to be Bigger than the Job

Posted by Ms. Lindsay So, Apr 18, 2014 2 comments


Ms. Lindsay So

Lindsay So Lindsay So

There were times when I would mention that I was starting a new job with the City of Philadelphia and the most frequent response was a remark about the “Good Government Job”—somewhere I could stay for a long time with the implication that I could never be fired. Sure, this comment might have been a joke but even so, I hadn’t really thought of it that way. Sure, having health benefits for the first time would be a major plus for me, an arts manager early in my career, but what motivated me most was the opportunity to learn about and directly impact the arts and culture community of a major city. Citywide programs, grant making, creative development opportunities, policy changes—I pictured myself having a hand in making Philadelphia a city where artists could thrive and residents could enjoy a diverse range of arts and culture experiences. I now believe this difference in perspective is generational: my peers in City Hall share my ambition and passion to affect change and make an impact with our work.

As emerging leaders advance in the workforce, we bring new expectations and goals for ourselves and for our employers. We are, by definition, future leaders—eager to grow and lead with the support of our organizations.

 Over the years, the call for innovation in arts and culture has grown louder and louder—foundations look for it, organizations claim to practice it, and consultants sell it—but the challenge that quickly follows is, as with any change, how to successfully institutionalize the practice. This year, I began to wonder if it is not an issue of size or budget, what is the impediment?  What if it’s bigger than data collection?  Perhaps the root is in leadership as usual—routine, unvaried reactions to new and diverse challenges. As emerging leaders we bring new eyes, new questions, and new approaches to help the arts and culture sector address its key challenges. Across the country the sector is working to compete with other leisure activities and welcome a diversifying (in every sense of the word) population into their audience. What better way to adapt to a changing sector and address the accompanying new challenges than to work from the inside outward? In thinking more about this, I believe that we as future leaders must be—if not want to be—bigger than our titles. We take the “and other responsibilities as needed” seriously. Talk to us, let us pursue these opportunities as they arise, and you will quickly discern that we have lofty visions for our field and we are eager to make a long-lasting impact.

For example, my office is currently without a Chief and a Deputy Cultural Officer—two roles responsible for guiding the Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy in the accomplishment of its vision and the successful implementation of its programs. In anticipation of this transition, I began to expand beyond research and policy to become the contact for arts and culture organizations and creative businesses interacting with City agencies, as well as serve as the resource for City agencies engaging or looking to engage the arts in serving their goals. I began to represent the office at meetings and started and continued conversations about the importance of arts, culture, and the creative industries to economic and community revitalization in Philadelphia to ensure that the message was carried on. It was important that despite these vacancies, local cultural institutions, organizations, and creative businesses have a City connection and that Philadelphia to City agencies have a resource through which to engage the arts in Philadelphia. While some instances have pushed me out of my comfort zone, as I have recognized that I am the youngest person at the table or in the room, it is most definitely an experience I wouldn't trade. What’s more, it is great to know that despite being in the office for less than a year; my colleagues had the confidence to give me this responsibility. It is my hope that I will be able to continue when the vacant positions are filled.

Learning from my own experience, I believe that the following items would help institutions recognize, nurture, and prepare their employees to become future leaders:

  • Local sectors should make more opportunities for multi-generational interaction. Sector networks need to expand to welcome professionals from other generations. Where else can all parties learn from one another and open up to institutionalized change. It has to start with being able to have a conversation and understand the other’s perspective.
  • The award of individual and organizational professional development grants to support the next generation of leaders. While not abundant, grants for individual artists are available to help emerging and established artists develop their talents. Americans for the Arts provides a host of scholarships to attend the Annual Convention and NAMP, but what about other membership organizations? What about foundations? Support for the continued education of emerging leaders to grow is essential if we are to become the future leaders of an ever-changing sector.
  • Using the existing professional development budget line to send mid-level employees to conferences. Oftentimes, conventions are opportunities for sector professionals to learn and see their friends who have spread across the country. These events are the perfect opportunity for emerging leaders to meet one another and begin to build these connections, but organizations may have only enough in the budget to send one executive-level staff person. This is a missed opportunity and our networks will continue to shrink if we are not given the opportunity to build them just as our predecessors have.
  • Support for programs that enrich the next generation leaders. I am fortunate enough to be a member of AFTA’s Emerging Leaders Council, but what about my peers in Philadelphia? Oftentimes, local networks struggle to build the capital to support its members.

As future leaders, the relationship between our local sector and its Emerging Leader Networks should be like that of a tree and its branches: we grow from them, but are supported in striking out on a fresh new path.

 

Interested in hearing more about the future of the arts from emerging arts leaders? Check out our preconference session on Arts Leadership at this year’s Annual Convention in Nashville, TN.

This Emerging Leaders Blog Salon on Charting the Future is generously sponsored by Patron Technology

2 responses for Branching Out – Nurturing Emerging Leaders to be Bigger than the Job

Comments

April 21, 2014 at 2:02 pm

Great post Lindsay. So proud of your accomplishments and professional growth in your work. I am sorry that our time working together was cut short by my departure, but glad that perhaps the leadership gap has given you enhanced opportunities for leadership and growth, which I had full confidence you were capable of. I am also grateful you have been in place to carry forward the many initiatives underway that but for you would simply have been lost or not executed with care and professionalism. And you make an excellent point about arts groups needing to think more deeply about how they provide more professional development opportunities to their emerging leaders. You and your generational colleagues are our future, and it makes me very optimistic for the field!

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Tyese M. Wortham says
April 21, 2014 at 2:40 pm

As an emerging, mid-career arts & culture grantmaker in a municipal agency, I thank you for sharing OUR experience! Arts in government encounter unique issues, such as rigid bureaucratic systems and hierachy, which are often counterintuitive to the movement, advancement, and forward thinking of the field around us. I applaud you for breaking through. It's inspiring and hopeful!

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