Key challenges for leadership in the 21st century

Leaders from across the creative and cultural sectors met at the first in a series of Dialogues on Leadership to debate the key challenges and issues for leadership in the 21st century. Discussions were lead by Baroness Lola Young with Board members of the Cultural Leadership Programme (CLP) and more than 100 people from across the sectors meeting at Rich Mix in London on 15 November. Simon Tait reflects on the issues raised:

The first Dialogue met with a very positive reception and has set the pace for the Cultural Leadership Programme, managed jointly by Arts Council England, Creative and Cultural Skills and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council.
The CLP was launched in June with a £12 million Treasury grant and will focus on work-based opportunities, a creative knowledge laboratory, intensive leadership development, powerbrokers for diversity, best practice for governing bodies, and entrepreneurs as leaders.

CLP Director Hilary Carty saw the Dialogues as a means to address some of the challenges of cultural leadership and to help future leaders "find the footholds to climb the ladder of opportunity".

Baroness Young said future Dialogues would address a range of issues, such as how cultural leaders could have a bigger voice in the wider sphere, how the pressures and burdens on cultural leaders could be evened out, what cultural leaders' role would be in the global world, and what cultural leadership would be in 2022, ten years after the Olympics. More issues would emerge through the Dialogues.

CLP chair David Kershaw, who is also Chief Executive of the advertising agency M&C Saatchi, said the cultural world was the greatest stimulant for change in society, "but if we don't start managing change, we will fall back". Lessons should be shared across the cultural and commercial industries, and cultural leaders should be highly entrepreneurial, seizing opportunities for vigorously promoting issues such as diversity.

Lord Smith of Finsbury, the former Culture Secretary and Director of the independent Clore Leadership Programme begun three years ago and which runs the CLP's new short courses, said the programme has proved that there was a rich seam of talent. "What CLP is going to be about is nurturing that talent to carry it forward,” he said.

Based at Nottingham Playhouse, Gemma Emmanuel-Waterton, Eclipse Theatre Producer and one of the new generation of cultural leaders raised the issue of working independently.

"You are on your own, escalating your vision, and it can be very lonely,” she said. "We need to create meaningful networks - gathering, mentoring, buddying - and a key challenge is for organisations to be open to risk taking and new ways of working."

Representing the museums sector, Graham Fisher, Chief Executive of Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, London, said museums needed to be continually watchful of "what drives your customer", and responding to changes in society. Perceptions of the importance of collections alter as the demographic of visitors changes with increasing diversity. Museums also need to feel less dependent on public funding, and align with other sectors of the cultural economy in developing different ways of generating income.

Michael Lynch, Chief Executive of the South Bank Centre, said that the issue of governance and the balanced relationship between an arts organisation's executive and its board was vital.

"The relationship in a complex arts organisation between the corporate sector, where boards are often drawn from, and the governance is an issue that is not well recognised" he said. The motives for board members joining differed widely, he said, and not every board member would share the passion of the Chief Executive.

Baroness Lola Young endorsed Mr Lynch's remarks. "The issue of boards and how they than can hinder or help is not talked about enough" she said. Both welcomed the focus on Governance as one of the key strands of the Cultural Leadership Programme.

And one of the first problems for new cultural leaders, said Gemma Emmanuel-Waterton, was knowing that they had a writ in the cultural community that went beyond their immediate responsibilities, both as a leader and, in her case, a producer. "When are you established and when have you stopped emerging?" she asked. "At the moment I think of myself as Gemma Emmanuel-Waterton, emerging cultural leader."