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leadership, Leading Towards a Different Future

Making the Case for Collaborative Leadership in Museums

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Written by Mike Murawski

Early this week, it was so fantastic to see the Birmingham Museums Trust announce its decision to bring Sara Wajid and Zak Mensah on as joint CEOs, making a bold leap into co-leadership that can help serve as a model for many other museums and nonprofit institutions in the years to come. I am particularly thrilled to hear this news since, over the past few months, I have taken a dive into the practices of collaborative and shared leadership in museums and nonprofits, thinking more deeply about this approach and seriously asking why more museums are not adopting this. It has been made clear that most museum professionals are not aware of established models to look toward for this practice (few still exist), and the significant benefits of collaborative leadership are not widely understood in our field. Outdated ideas of solo leadership remain the dominant narrative in the field of museums, but that is beginning to change.

I am moderating a panel session on the topic for MuseumNext’s virtual conference this October, bringing together individuals with experience in co-leadership roles in museums and arts organizations. My interest in this issue also comes out of my recent call for our field to upend our thinking about leadership and make some significant changes as we move into the future. Here is some of what I have found, and some helpful readings and resources for those working to advocate for this type of change at your institution. And please, if you know of other examples of co-leadership in practice at a museum or other useful resources, please share (and I can add them in here).

Collaborative Leadership That Works

If the current moment of crises is indeed a unique and unprecedented opportunity for museums to reimagine themselves and emerge as more human-centered institutions, then I cannot think of a better time to seriously consider adopting a collaborative and shared approach to leadership. Not only do collaborative forms of leadership align more strongly with organizational cultures working to advance equity and anti-racism, but it is also increasingly difficult for any single individual to possess all of the skills and abilities needed to lead a complex organization into a future of post-pandemic uncertainties.

In his post entitled “Museum Leadership for the Rest of Us,” Robert Weisberg cites a roundtable conversation among business experts and senior partners at McKinsey that calls into question the hero mentality of directors and CEOs in times of crisis. When asked “Does this mean we are seeing the end of the hero CEO?,” Bill Schaninger responded:

“[W]e’ve seen COVID-19 accelerating the shift away from classic authoritarian leadership to new forms of distributed decision making…. CEOs still trying to hold on to top-down mandates could very quickly become the impediment rather than the solution.”

A small number of museums have moved towards various forms of collaborative leadership, although examples are still difficult to come by and there are very few sustained or permanent commitments to these alternative forms of leadership.  After a bit of a lengthy search, I was able to find a few examples to note:

  • Beginning in 2016, Deyan Sudjic and Alice Black served in co-director roles at the Design Museum in London. Both individuals stepped down from these roles in January 2020, and the institution appointed Tim Marlow in a solo director role as well as the first person to serve as chief executive officer.
  • In 2019, Sabina Sabolovic, Natasa Ilic and Ivet Curlin were collectively hired to take equal share in running the Kunsthalle Wien (Vienna), after the sudden resignation of the Kunsthalle’s previous director Nicolaus Schafhausen.
  • The Five Oaks Museum (previously the Washington County Museum) transitioned from a single director to a co-director model in 2019 with the promotion of Molly Alloy and Nathanael Andreini in its first co-director roles.
  • At the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery, an organizational merger back in 2008 led to a unique dual leadership model based in a public/private partnership structure. Cheryl Donaldson and Laura Valdez currently serve as Co-Executive Directors of the museum, a model grounded in a partnership relationship and based in co-expertise.
  • The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (Te Papa) established a bicultural dual leadership model when it was founded in the 1990s. The partnership between the Chief Executive Officer and Kaihautū (Māori leader) reflects the bicultural nature of the museum. Te Papa acknowledges the unique position of Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand and the need to secure their participation in the governance, management, and operation of the museum. Arapata Hakiwai has served in the role of Kaihautū since 2013, while Courtney Johnston more recently entered the role of Chief Executive Officer in December 2019.
  • And, of course, now the fantastic news from Birmingham Museums Trust, one of the UK’s largest independent museum trusts.

Outside of museums, there are many nonprofits and arts organizations adopting a shared leadership or co-directorship model. A 2017 article in Nonprofit Quarterly shared insights from five leading nonprofits that have developed shared leadership structures, including the Building Movement Project, Management Assistance Group, and the Rockwood Leadership Institute. Arts nonprofit Fractured Atlas has been operating with a shared, non-hierarchical leadership model since 2018, using a moment of leadership transition to experiment with new organizational structures. Fractured Atlas began this new approach with a four-person leadership team, and they have written rather extensively about their experiences with this model thus far (via their blog).

After studying some of the research on the topic along with the experiences of those successfully implementing collaborative and shared leadership models, there are several key benefits that appear to emerge:

1. Leads to more effective decision-making

When it comes to decision-making, a collaborative leadership approach focuses more on quality than efficiency. Making decisions may take more time, but this process brings in more perspectives and ideas and results in doing things better collectively. With this process also comes greater transparency as more individuals and staff are involved in making decisions and talking through ideas. In his study entitled “Shared Leadership: Is It Time for a Change?,” Michael Kocolowski found that organizations identified several benefits of shared leadership, including the “synergy and expertise derived from shared leadership” and “diversity of thought in decision making.”

In 2019, Cheryl Donaldson and Donna Jared, then Co-Executive Directors at the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery, reflected on some of the keys to making co-leadership work. For them, this model means that co-leaders are bringing their own expertise to the organization and the daily decisions that are made. While each has some autonomous responsibilities, they note that “the lines are blurred, on purpose, to allow us to support one another, to bring different perspectives to decision making, and to hold each other accountable” (see interview with Jill Stilwell).

According to Tim Cynova, a member of Fractured Atlas’s co-leadership team, their shared leadership model “lessens the organization’s dependence on any one person, and strengthens strategic thinking and decision-making capacity across a broad range of staff members” (see Tim’s post “CEO Not (Necessarily) Required”). When there is more than one leader—and when leadership becomes part of organizational culture—it becomes even more critical to spend a lot of time thinking together, sharing ideas, communicating, and being as transparent as possible.

2. Cultivates innovation and growth

For many organizations adopting collaborative and shared leadership models, there is an observed increase in innovation and experimentation. Kocolowski observed that “flow and creativity seem to flourish in a shared leadership environment,” and that such shared leadership models are particularly important for the growth and development of new ventures and projects. “Co-leadership allows you to think bigger and dream knowing you have a thought partner to dream with,” noted Donaldson and Jared at the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery.

In a traditional top-down leadership model, there is often a sense that the knowledge, expertise, and ideas of those at the very top are more valued and important. This way of siloing and isolating innovation in a single leader or small group of managers can work to prevent an organization from truly reaching its potential. A collaborative organization aims to unlock the knowledge, lived experiences, and creative capacities of its entire team, breaking down the barriers that prevent new ideas from bubbling to the surface.  As Darlene Nipper of the Rockwood Leadership Institute puts it, “What we’re able to accomplish together is way more than I believe any one person could accomplish.”

3. Centers the value of relationships

A shared leadership model brings attention to the relational and collaborative aspects of work as well as the ways in which the value of relationship itself can be incorporated into the leadership structures of an organization. As social justice activist and author adrienne maree brown proclaims in her book Emergent Strategy (2017), “Relationships are everything,” and the depth of those relationships determines the strength of a system or organization.

For many in co-directorship roles, they develop a strong sense of connection, respect, and mutual trust with their counterpart. For these models to work effectively, an organization needs to center these values and understand the importance of relationships within organizational culture. Donaldson and Jared reflect about their experience at the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery, “As co-leaders, we’ve come to understand it is the partnership relationship that is leading the institution, not us an individuals.”

4. Promotes shared leadership across the organization

“Shared leadership does really work, and when it’s working well, it’s not just about the few people who are codirectors, it’s actually about the whole organization,” states Susan Misra, co-director at the Management Assistance Group. Collaborative leadership is not just about the individual leaders sharing power and working together—it is also about changing organizational culture and mindset to be more collaborative. For most organizations successfully adopting a shared leadership model, developing a co-directorship is just the beginning of a longer process of building collective structures and new ways of working that include the voices of all staff. Erin Matson, Co-Director of Reproaction, acknowledges, “The co-directorship model is a powerful was to expand the leadership capabilities of your organization.”

For Donaldson and Jared, their co-leadership approach at the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery models a flattening out of the organizational chart. They expanded their shared leadership approach to include director level staff who are invited to work together as a shared group rather than only oversee their own specific departments or areas. Other organizations, including Fractured Atlas and the Five Oaks Museum, have used this moment of collaborative leadership to also deeply explore pay equity and transparency. When organizations take this approach, leadership growth can occur across an entire team and begin to have a powerful effect on many areas of work and practice.

5. Aligns with anti-racism and equity

With collaborative leadership comes the opportunity to examine what power looks like within your organization and to reimagine how it operates in more equitable and inclusive ways. For some organizations, the shift to co-directorship emerges during a transition out of a particularly oppressive situation with traditional leadership. Overall, a top-down, individualistic model of leadership is in direct contradiction with efforts to advance equity, inclusion, and anti-racism. In their discussion with CompassPoint team members about shared power, co-directors of several social-justice-focused nonprofits noted that forms of traditional, hierarchical leadership just did not align with the work they do as organizations.

As noted in Leadership and Race: How to Develop and Support Leadership that Contributes to Racial Justice, a report developed through a research initiative of the Leadership Learning Community:

“We often reward people whose leadership style is aligned with the individual model of the dominant culture, but not those who engage in more collective forms of leadership. This serves to render invisible the leadership of many women and people of different races/ethnicities.”

The report’s authors continue:

“Leadership can play a critical role in either contributing to racial justice or reinforcing prevailing patterns of racial inequality and exclusion…. To achieve racial and social justice, we need to move beyond the emphasis on the power of individuals to a philosophy of interdependence and building connections.”

Fractured Atlas Board members Christopher Mackie and Russell Willis Taylor state that the shared leadership model in their organization makes “a powerful statement against the inevitability of hierarchy and the racist, sexist, and otherwise oppressive social institutions and organizations that it enables” (see their post “Thoughts on Co-Leadership: What So We Think We’re Doing?”). For Fractured Atlas, their non-hierarchical leadership team helps advance their core values of anti-racism and anti-oppression by modeling an inclusive approach that fosters a diversity of voices, perspectives, and skills. By questioning and breaking away from the commonly accepted ideas of leadership based in white dominant culture, organizations can move toward more inclusive forms of decision-making, collaborative practice, and collective workplace culture.

Taking Action to Build a Different Future

In her June article “On the Limits of Care and Knowledge,” Yesomi Umolu, Director and Curator of Logan Center Exhibitions at the University of Chicago, sharply highlighted the broken foundations of colonial violence and exclusion for museums, writing:

“at a time when many civic institutions are being exposed for negligence of duty, museums must recognize their shortcomings and develop new ways of thinking and doing.”

By replacing the outdated, broken, and harmful structures of individualistic leadership and leader-centered organizational hierarchy, we have the potential to reinvent museums as vibrant, thriving, equitable institutions that are better equipped to navigate the unprecedented challenges of our times and more fully care for their staff and their local communities. Yet nothing is going to change unless we question our assumptions, fight against the entrenched barriers of the status quo and the “we can’t” mentality, and begin to take action to make change happen. I hope that this post includes some information and resources that can support those making arguments for collaborative leadership right now, and that it might help spark more institutions to consider moving in this direction.

Series on Leadership

This is the third post in a series called “Leading Towards a Different Future” that takes a deeper dive into ideas about leadership and some steps for taking action. I am, of course, open to questions, conversation, and bringing together more ideas that can help us move toward changing museums. Add to the Comments below, message me via social media, or send me an email at murawski27@gmail.com.

Other posts in this series include:

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About the Author

MIKE MURAWSKI: Independent consultant, change leader, author, and nature lover living in Portland, Oregon. I am passionate about transforming museums and non-profits to become more equitable and community-centered. After more than 20 years of work in education and museums, I bring my personal core values of deep listening, collective care, and healing practice into the work that I lead within organizations and communities. Learn More.

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Header Image: “brainstorming over paper” by Scott Graham on Unsplash

Leading Towards a Different Future

Leading Means Being More Human

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Written by Mike Murawski

In an April conversation with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman about leadership in times of crisis, business expert Dov Seidman stressed the need for business leaders to put people ahead of profits and heed the call to pivot in ways that are anchored in “deep human values.” Seidman ends the exchange by saying, “Leaders who in this pause hear that call … will be the ones that will earn our most enduring respect and support.” I found it worth noting that as the initial economic impact of the pandemic hit, Seidman was tapping into something that most museum directors and boards were not: the importance of people—and, I would add, the deeply human values that lead us to care for each other first before we panic and obsess about the bottom line.

As the grim picture of revenue loss and budget shortfalls have become apparent for many museums during the COVID pandemic—especially for larger institutions—we have repeatedly seen people in leadership positions deciding to prioritize balanced spreadsheets and protecting endowments over connecting with and supporting the people that make up their organizations. I see this as indicative of the problems with leadership that I outlined in my previous post, a model of leadership in which the decisions of one person (or a small few) are based in a desire to preserve power and authority.

Counter to this, I have spoken with a few directors at institutions faced with the same financial problems that have nonetheless refused to lay off staff. The reason for this, one director said, was because “it didn’t feel like the human thing to do.” They were willing to be more human at a time when those following the traditions of leadership were protecting themselves, hoarding power, and hiding behind hollow public relations statements. They were refusing to perpetuate harm at a time when trauma was all around us.

During the Radical Support Collective’s four-week reading group on ‘leadership in times of crisis’ that I was a part of back in April, we read Who Do We Choose To Be? (2017) by Margaret Wheatley, a teacher and leadership consultant best known for her classic 1992 text Leadership and the New Science. While I still have many questions about Wheatley’s thoughts on leadership, one quote early in her book resonated with me in this particular moment. Her words have helped me understand the vital importance of transforming leadership, specifically, as part of the work to change museums. She writes:

“I know it is possible for leaders to use their power and influence, their insight and compassion, to lead people back to an understanding of who we are as human beings, to create the conditions for our basic human qualities of generosity, contribution, community, and love to be evoked no matter what.” (8)

Better Humans Make Better Leaders

Embracing a human-centered mindset in museums asks us to elevate care, relationship building, and collective well-being as integral elements to our institutions’ values and culture. It is about putting all human beings (not just visitors or audiences) at the center of our organizational thinking rather than collections, big donors, endowments, curatorial silos, or shiny capital projects. For those in leadership positions, I think this means setting aside ego, stepping back, learning to listen in radical ways, and making decisions based in care and deeply-held human values—and doing this all while it runs counter to conventional thinking, entrenched legacies of leadership, and the expectations of funders.

In his 2019 book Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up, leadership development expert and executive coach Jerry Colonna writes about how the habits and behavioral patterns of CEOs have been detrimental to their own well-being and the well-being of others. On page one, he states:

“I believe that better humans make better leaders. I further believe that the process of learning to lead well can help us become better humans.” (1)

In my copy of Colonna’s book, these two sentences are heavily underlined. I remember reading this for the very first time, and just sitting with it. I was in the middle of a particularly challenging decision, and I was looking for guidance on how to move forward. Much of Colonna’s book and practice is focused on radical self-inquiry and finding ways to listen deeply to our own hearts. I thought about how white dominant culture and traditional gender norms teach us to resist this vulnerability and instead put up a façade of confidence and decisiveness. Make the decision, stand by it, get back to work, and move on.

Being a more human-centered leader—and leading from a place of deeper human values—requires us to resist this pressure to perform the rigid expectations of ‘leadership’ that are harmful. It requires us to slow down and ask ourselves a series of meaningful questions:

  • What is my work to become a better human?
  • What is my own power and privilege within society and within the structures of this institution?
  • In what ways have I been making decisions based on the norms and expectations of a toxic workplace culture?
  • How am I complicit in creating or reinforcing the conditions of a toxic work culture?
  • How can I break free from existing and traditional expectations, and lead from my heart and from a place of humanness—despite the risks or consequences?

After all, as Colonna writes, “Power in the hands of one afraid or unwilling to look into the mirror perpetuates an often silent, always seething violence in the workplace” (181).

This process of self-inquiry is ongoing, and we need to practice holding space for qualities such as care, compassion, healing, deep listening, emotional maturity, and a sense of interconnectedness with other human beings and with our planet. It is a practice that we can cultivate and grow through journaling, meditation, mindfulness, dialogue with others, building a community of support with those who truly value these qualities, and learning from work being done outside the field of museums in social justice, restorative justice, community organizing, nonviolent communication, climate activism, and healing practice. These are not ‘soft’ skills, as they have frequently been referred to as a way to write off and devalue them. These are essential skills. At a time when our society is in urgent need of care & healing, being a more human-centered leader means making a commitment to create the conditions for these qualities—and the individuals who uphold these qualities—to thrive.

Breaking Through the Resistance

Some of you might be having trouble processing how any of this relates to leadership (or, at least, the ideas of leadership you’ve held dear for so long). Or you might be thinking that, while this all sounds nice, it is just not practical within the ‘reality’ of an organization. You might even be thinking to yourself: I get all of this, but will my employees and team respect me if I am more vulnerable and more human?

You are not alone. The entire construction of ‘effective leadership’ in our minds has been built up by the systems of white supremacy, patriarchy, and corporate capitalism (for more on white supremacy & white dominant culture in museums, see my earlier post here and a really good Incluseum post here). So it makes some sense that you are feeling resistance to any suggestion that you uproot these entrenched ideas. But trust me, we need to let our reticence and resistance go, and open ourselves to new ways of doing things. Not only are these outdated norms of leadership holding our organizations back, they are harmful to us, those we work with, and the communities we are aiming to build connections with. Ask yourself why unfixing and rethinking your ideas about leadership makes you uncomfortable or defensive? What might be causing you to be fearful of change, in both a personal sense and an organizational sense? What is the worst thing that will happen if you make a commitment right now to being a more human and empathetic leader?

Being More Human Together

The work of transforming museums and nonprofits into more human-centered organizations is certainly collective work—no one person, no matter how much self-inquiry they do, is going to bring about transformative change alone. And changing our ideas about leadership is also a collective and collaborative endeavor.

The rise of initiatives, organizations, and groups such as Museum as Site for Social Action (MASS Action), the Empathetic Museum, Museum Workers Speak, Museums Respond to Ferguson, Museums and Race, Museum Hue, Decolonize This Place, Art + Museum Transparency, Museums Are Not Neutral, and others have all elevated care, justice, transparency, equity, relationships, human connection, and empathetic-centered action as transforming forces for museums and cultural organizations. These campaigns and movements, along with many others, are filled with leaders willing to make a difference, stand up for what’s right, and take care of our communities and each other. We’re seeing that happen right now in so many ways, including the powerful mutual aid fund created by Museum Workers Speak in response to the massive lay-offs across the museum sector. Through the leadership of so many individuals, these groups have developed resources, toolkits, rubrics, and roadmaps that offer support, thorough research, and assessments aimed at dismantling oppressive structures and practices. So for anyone feeling isolated or struggling to make change happen within your organization and its leadership, there is a growing movement here to support you.

More to Come…

This is the second post in a series called “Leading Towards a Different Future” that takes a deeper dive into ideas about leadership and some steps for taking action. I am, of course, open to questions, conversation, and bringing together more ideas that can help us move toward changing museums.

Upcoming posts in this series will explore what it means to stand apart and lead from the heart, how and why to adopt collective and non-hierarchical models of leadership, the need to develop and recognize leadership everywhere in our organizations, and what action steps can be taken to build a different kind of leadership for museums.

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About the Author

MIKE MURAWSKI: Independent consultant, change leader, author, and educator living with his family in Portland, Oregon.  Mike is passionate about transforming museums and non-profits to become more equitable and community-centered. After more than 20 years of work in education and museums, he brings his personal core values of deep listening, collective care, and healing practice into the work that he leads within organizations and communities. Since 2011, he has served as Founding Editor of ArtMuseumTeaching. Mike is also currently the co-producer along with La Tanya S. Autry of Museums Are Not Neutral, a global advocacy campaign aimed at exposing the myth of museum neutrality and calling for equity-based transformation across museums. In 2016, he co-founded Super Nature Adventures LLC, a creative design and education project based in the Pacific Northwest that partners with parks, businesses, and non-profits to design content, illustrated maps, and interpretive resources aimed at expanding access and learning in the outdoors and public spaces. When he’s not writing, drawing, or thinking about museums, you can find Mike on long trail runs in the forests and mountains of the Pacific Northwest.

Leading Towards a Different Future

Upending Our Ideas About Leadership in Museums

5 Comments

Written by Mike Murawski

Since the beginning of this pandemic crisis and throughout the ongoing protests demanding racial justice, we have seen evidence of a wide range of leadership qualities on the public stage—watching national political leaders on TV and through social media, seeing governors and mayors respond to these crises in their own states and cities, and feeling the effects of how those leading our museums and nonprofits have decided to respond.  The behaviors of those in traditionally-defined leadership positions have varied from being fairly brave, vulnerable, and serving the greater good, to acting in ways that are extremely harmful, self-serving, violent, and reprehensible. For museums, we’ve certainly seen this full range of leadership behavior—yet, unfortunately, far too much of the self-serving, harmful kind.

Leadership at institutions including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Guggenheim, MoMA, Detroit Institute of Arts, SFMoMA, the Getty, New Orleans Museum of Art, Newfields (formerly the Indianapolis Museum of Art), and countless other museums have been called out for their inequitable and opaque decisions to cut and furlough staff, for actions taken to prevent staff from organizing and forming unions, for their role in creating and perpetuating toxic and racist work environments, for sexual harassment and abusive behavior toward staff, for censoring staff and community voices, and for unethical behaviors regarding collections practices, hiring practices, and artwork loan practices. In a few cases so far, demands for accountability from staff, former staff, artists, and community members have led to action—the Executive Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland resigned amid the museum’s problematic handling of an exhibition of drawings by artist Shaun Leonardo, and the Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Detroit has been fired by the board after charges of mismanagement and racial harassment. In Canada, the President and CEO of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights was forced to step down due to accusations of censorship, racism, and sexual harassment. And the Detroit Institute of Arts Staff Action group is calling for the resignation of the DIA’s Executive Director amidst a whistler blower complaint filed with the state of Michigan and the IRS and claims of a hostile and chaotic work environment at that institution under his leadership.

Rather than these being isolated examples, these behaviors are indicative of a field-wide crisis in leadership—a crisis that has existed for too long, and has been exposed through constant and ongoing efforts to organize and take collective action, increase transparency, and hold institutions and those in positions of power accountable.  As curator, writer, and activist Kayleigh Bryant-Greenwell calls out in a recent open letter for Museum as Site for Social Action (MASS Action):

“For far too long our field has been led exclusively by white, cisgenered, male, privileged, overly educated, wealthy, elite, upperclass, heteronormative, ableist, colonist gatekeepers.”

The prevailing notion of leadership has been defined through existing white, patriarchal norms of power, authority, and control as well as the systems of oppression and domination that are so entrenched in museums (for more on white supremacy & white dominant culture in museums, see my previous post here and a really good Incluseum post here). When we use the words ‘leader’ and ‘leadership,’ we are too often only thinking of the single person at the top, the ‘boss,’ an individual who simply holds a job title with words like ‘Director,’ ‘Chief,’ ‘Head,’ ‘President,’ ‘Executive,’ or ‘Chair.’ In a 2017 article for Nonprofit Quarterly, the co-founder of the Nonprofit Democracy Network, Simon Mont, writes, “We have built our organizations around an idea that our leadership should come from either a single individual or a small group,” pointing out the urgent need for this outdated individual-centered understanding of leadership to be replaced. In addition to this narrow idea of top-down decision making, many museums and nonprofits are also replete with poor communication, lack of transparency, overly hierarchical structures, and a distinct unwillingness to change. This all results in the further marginalization of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Deaf, Disabled, and LGBTQIA staff, volunteers, and audiences. “The dominant organizational structure of nonprofits,” Mont declares, “is unsustainable.”

In her post, Bryant-Greenwell contends that “our museums reflect our leadership.” If, indeed, our museums reflect these behaviors and this broken model of leadership, then museums are certainly in a heightened moment of crisis and concern—which only feels more urgent when paired with the sweeping impact of the pandemic on these institutions and their staff.

Yet with each and every crisis comes a possibility for change.

In the Center for Cultural Power’s recent guide on cultural activism during the pandemic, co-founder and president Favianna Rodriguez reflects that “in moments of disillusion and fractures, there is also an opportunity to sow ideas for a different kind of future.”

Now, more than ever, is the time for us to upend our conventional ideas about leadership and what it means to be a leader; to rethink what it means to bring people together for a collective purpose and shared vision; and to redefine what values and skills are truly necessary to navigate our current crises and shape the future of museums. It is up to all of us to choose to embrace a “different kind of future.”

Reflecting on Leadership

Since the pandemic began closing museums in March, I have spent quite a bit of time taking a step back to reflect on this idea of ‘leadership’ and what it means for museums specifically. Over the these past few months, I have participated in a reading group on ‘leadership in times of crisis’ facilitated by the Radical Support Collective, I have read through piles of articles and several key books on leadership and organizational structures, and I have spoken with many people who currently hold leadership positions within organizations or whom I would define as leaders in the field of museums (even though their institutions have not recognized them as such).

Leadership is something I have consistently thought about in each and every institution I have worked for, experiencing a wide array of leadership styles while also working to shape my own practice of leadership. I have seen and experienced instances of both courageous and paltry leadership, and I have no doubt been the purveyor of such experiences to those reporting to me over the years. Through all of this, I have regularly asked myself: What does leadership look like? What should leadership look like? External pressures and expectations be damned, what does being a leader mean for me?

Over the past several years, ideas of care, healing, and collective well-being have become core to my own personal practice of being an educator, team member, advocate, change agent, and leader.  In so many ways, these values have been shaped by and with others that I have worked alongside, whether in the same department, across different areas of the same institution, or as part of the amazing groups and individuals around the US and world advocating for workers’ rights, demanding equity, and pushing forward a more community-centered and people-centered vision for museums. So as the pandemic hit and I found myself among the thousands of museum workers being laid off from their institutions, these core values have been like my bedrock, my guiding light, my North Star.

Which is why I was really struck by an article written back in April by Kathleen Osta, Managing Director of the National Equity Project. In her piece entitled “Leading through the Portal to Claim Our Humanity,” she frames the current moment of heightened anxiety and uncertainty as a “once in a lifetime opportunity to increase our global empathy—to practice radical compassion—and to pay attention to our collective well-being.” That has resonated with me in such a strong way, especially in my thinking about how we can use this moment to shift our vision of leadership. Osta writes:

“How might we use this global crisis to re-order our priorities and lives in ways that increase our collective well-being?… How might we organize our lives at the interpersonal level and lead change at the institutional and structural level with the awareness that we belong to each other—that every human being is worthy of our attention and care? What might be possible for ourselves and for future generations if we decide to live and lead with this value?”

Rethinking Leadership

I propose that we utilize this incredibly unique and unprecedented moment to seriously rethink what leadership means, and replace worn out conventional ideas with new possibilities.  For me, among the vast and deep thinking out there about leadership, there are four key principles I would like to explore here:

  1. Leadership is human-centered.
  2. Leadership means standing apart.
  3. Leadership is a collaborative, collective, and shared endeavor.
  4. Leadership is everywhere around us.

While I don’t pretend that any of these ideas are new, I certainly wish I had come across them much earlier in my own career; and I think working for ‘leaders’ who more closely embodied these principles would have significantly changed my work within museums, my ongoing relationship to these institutions, and their overall response to the crises of COVID and racial injustice. I see the powerful role that white supremacy and patriarchy have played in developing the accepted traditions and destructive politics of leadership, and what kinds of leadership traits we have been taught to value and which traits we have been taught to actively devalue. Yet it is past time that we unsettle and challenge these norms, demand change from those who hold positions of power and authority, and build a future that celebrates and centers care, collaboration, belonging, and well-being.

More to Come…

This is the first post in my “Leading Towards a Different Future” series that takes a deeper dive into these ideas about leadership and steps for taking action. I am, of course, open to questions, conversation, and bringing together more ideas that can help us move toward changing museums.

The next post in this series, “Leading Means Being More Human,” examines the importance of human-centered leadership and the process of radical self-inquiry. Subsequent posts in this series will explore what it means to stand apart and lead from the heart, how and why to adopt collective and non-hierarchical models of leadership, the need to develop and recognize leadership everywhere in our organizations, and what action steps can be taken to build a different kind of leadership for museums.

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About the Author

MIKE MURAWSKI: Independent consultant, change leader, author, and educator living with his family in Portland, Oregon.  Mike is passionate about transforming museums and non-profits to become more equitable and community-centered. After more than 20 years of work in education and museums, he brings his personal core values of deep listening, collective care, and healing practice into the work that he leads within organizations and communities. Since 2011, he has served as Founding Editor of ArtMuseumTeaching. Mike is also currently the co-producer along with La Tanya S. Autry of Museums Are Not Neutral, a global advocacy campaign aimed at exposing the myth of museum neutrality and calling for equity-based transformation across museums. In 2016, he co-founded Super Nature Adventures LLC, a creative design and education project based in the Pacific Northwest that partners with parks, businesses, and non-profits to design content, illustrated maps, and interpretive resources aimed at expanding access and learning in the outdoors and public spaces. When he’s not writing, drawing, or thinking about museums, you can find Mike on long trail runs in the forests and mountains of the Pacific Northwest.

OpenThink

Supporting Leaders of Tomorrow in Museum Education Today

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Written by Wendy Ng & Rachel Trinkley

When you’re regularly working 10-hour days doing everything from implementing strategic initiatives to signing timesheets, how do you manage to be a leader in those circumstances?  Ask any exempt staff (1) and they’ll no doubt share stories of being overworked, under-resourced, and despite the best of intentions, feeling overwhelmed and less than effective. Given this reality, beyond your personal conviction and will power to do a good job, what makes a great leader?  What supports do leaders today and tomorrow need to be successful?  What strengths and skills can museum educators bring to leadership roles?

These questions guided an interactive session we led at the National Art Education Association Annual Convention in March 2015.  During the session, colleagues shared the qualities they believe make a great leader.  If you think about a great leader from your own life, you’ll probably recognize many of these same qualities including:

  • has vision
  • is innovative
  • is a great listener
  • speaks the truth
  • is courageous
  • accepts and learns from failure
  • is strategic when fighting battles
  • knows when to follow rather than lead
  • models behavior for staff
  • brings others along and empowers others
  • is a chief storyteller

From there, we split into groups and tackled the top three leadership issues we face, as chosen by those assembled:

  1. developing and supporting staff
  2. institutional culture change
  3. making change at your level

Since we believe in the power of collective minds, and know that there are incredibly smart, capable people in our work, we endeavored to develop solutions or, at least, resources and places to begin. Here’s what we learned…

Developing and Supporting Staff

Build time into our practice, as individuals and as teams, for reflection.  Given the theme of the convention, use Design Thinking to test, prototype, and create solutions as staff through an iterative process.  Books recommended were Coaching Skills for Non-Profit Managers and Leaders and Managing to Change the World.

Institutional Culture/Climate Change

Create interdisciplinary teams and use Design Thinking to create solutions.  Change takes time and is an investment – you’ll need to weather storms and stay more than two to three years at an institution.  It takes courage to run with it, create a space that doesn’t exist, and ask forgiveness later, not permission.  Flip authority within by trusting others with the reins.

Making change at your level

Whether you are a volunteer, intern, part-time staff, full-time staff, or a director, hold yourself to high standards while knowing your limitations.  Modeling change versus talking about change is more impactful.  Awareness of change leads to more collaboration, which leads to growing success and less discouragement, which generates more ideas.  The book Tempered Radicals was recommended.

design-thinking
Design thinking, Flickr photo by Cedim News. CC BY-NC 2.0 license.

As we reflected on the outcomes of that session recently, we realized the values, challenges, solutions all still feel relevant to us. When we talked about our current environments and work realities however, some new questions and challenges emerged:

  • has vision – what if others on your team don’t share that vision?
  • is innovative – what if others define innovation differently?
  • is a great listener – what if others aren’t listening to you?
  • speaks the truth – what if others don’t want to hear it?
  • is courageous – what if your courage backfires?
  • accepts and learns from failure – what if failure negatively impacts your job or career? What if others in your institution don’t value failure?
  • is strategic when fighting battles – when does strategy become political and personality-driven?
  • knows when to follow rather than lead – how do you follow when there’s a lack of trust?
  • models behaviour for staff – what if staff are not receptive?  For example, emerging and mid-career professionals tend to prefer flat rather than hierarchical organizational structures compared to more senior professionals.
  • brings others along and empowers others – what if they disappoint?
  • is a chief storyteller – what if it’s a story others aren’t ready to hear? What if your story is competing for airtime, or there’s no one to hear it?

Perhaps these questions, or similar versions, have emerged in your setting as well, whether quietly or loudly. How do leaders tackle these very real, messy issues? What sources of strength, knowledge, or wisdom can we mine to support both ourselves and others?

We invite your thoughts and responses to these and other questions — add to the Comments below, or share your questions via social media.

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Notes

[1] The U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act determines many employment standards, including who is or is not “exempt” from overtime pay. Many museum workers are exempt from overtime pay due to their work duties.

About the Authors

WENDY NG: Manager, Learning at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada, where she oversees School Visits, Traveling Programs, and the Hands-on Galleries.  Previously, Wendy worked at the Art Gallery of Ontario as Coordinator, Elementary School and Teacher Programs, and other museums in Washington, DC and London, England.  She holds a BFA and BEd from York University, a MAT in Museum Education from George Washington University, and is certified by the Ontario College of Teachers.

RACHEL TRINKLEY: Director of Education for Explore! Children’s Museum of Washington DC, a new children’s museum being developed for the nation’s capital. Prior to joining the museum, she worked at the Freer|Sackler Galleries, Smithsonian Institution, and at the Columbus Museum of Art (Ohio), where she managed the docent program and served as Assistant Director of Learning. She holds a BA from Saint Mary’s College, Indiana, and an MA in art history from Ohio State University.

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Header Image: PopTech Flickr photo, “2010 PopTech Science and Public Leadership Fellows,” CC BY-SA 2.0 license, no changes made to photo.