In 2016 Mary Cloake, Chief Executive of Bluecoat in
Liverpool asked me to do some thinking practice about the current and future
meaning of artistic leadership. This followed some work with Mary and her team
on artistic policy and recruitment. It was a good chance to do some reading and
thinking, and to test ideas with the Bluecoat team and some other very sharp
minds, and we recently launched the paper at an event in Liverpool to mark
Bluecoat’s 300th birthday. You can now read it here and it will inform roundtables Bluecoat are running across the country over the
next few months as part of their Artistic leadership Initiative.
It’s not a long paper, and doesn't claim to dig much absolutely
new ground. I hope it gives a simple and memorable framework for thinking
about, and developing the skills necessary for, artistic leadership in what I
call ‘contradictory times’. (Shitstorms
and sunshine being just one discarded title…) I argue the most effective
leaders operate inside their
organisations, developing people, practice and business, outside in the sector, and beyond
in the world – playing social, civic and political roles.
I also argue those contradictory times and the ‘culture of
culture’ are placing unjustifiable burdens on leaders, and in fact many other
people too, including artists. I must say, though, that when I suggest we need
to stop implicitly or explicitly expecting regular 60 hour weeks from cultural
workers, some people tend to nod and agree but in a way that suggest I’m being
unrealistic, ‘given our passion for what we do’, and could we move on rapidly
before we actually have to change
anything?
I am undoubtedly shaped by my own experiences and
personality, and I know I find long hours both compelling and consuming. I
still work long hours a bit too often for comfort – but not all the time. I
stopped that when I left a job that left me sleeping all weekend most weekends,
when I wasn’t working them – my ‘big cheese job’ as a friend used to call it,
taking the mick. I can’t quite envisage what might make me go back to that.
(Never say never, though, of course.) That means giving up some things, of
course, (proportions of pay, prestige and pension, just to mention the p’s) but
that’s a choice I’m currently happy/able to make. We should not deceive
ourselves that the present status quo in cultural work does not also force people
to give up other things.
Anyway, as I dismount that particular hobby horse, I hope
the Bluecoat paper is stimulating. I’d love to do some coaching with artistic
leaders who want to work on the ‘inside/outside/beyond’ basis - you know where
I am if that’s of interest to you.
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