Required for Leadership

My day job is searching for a new Executive Director.  They hired one of those big ol' fancy search firms to handle the task.

They asked me what I was looking for in a new ED.

I told them I only need one thing:

I need a leader who believes that the best days of both the organization and the art form are ahead of us.

I think those are the types of leaders all of us, no matter what art form we work in, need now.

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I see so many of us in the field looking to return to whatever they think of as the "glory days."

The days before the world exploded with entertainment options.

The days before people turned away from Shakespeare and toward reality TV.

Those days are gone.

This is the turf we operate in now.  It's complex and messy.  Because of that complexity, too many people are just trying to survive and keep their piece of the pie from shrinking.

We need leaders that can embrace the Stockdale Paradox; the ability to confront the hard facts of the current reality and balance that with the faith that your group will thrive in the end.

That's who I want to work for.

I'm guessing that's who you want to work for as well.

 

 

Comments

[Tony Adams]

Ironic that it was like that in Shakespeare's day too. (I'd like to see how a typical contemporary institution would fare for audiences next to a bear-baiting pit and with the plague, etc.)

I had a wrestling coach a long time ago when I was a sophomore in High School tell me: "Right now you're not working to win. You're working to not lose. You're taking advantage of other's mistakes, but you're not creating opportunities. You'll only beat the bottom and middle of the pack that way."

I think it was some of the best advice I ever got.

[Jocelyn Prince]

At the LMDA conference last month in Washington DC, Canadian dramaturg Brian Quirt became the first person to ever win the Elliot Hayes award in recognition of exemplary contributions by dramaturgs to the conception, development and production of theatre or to educational projects in dramaturgy in the Americas over the past two years.

In his acceptance speech, he said that we must be willing to let some theaters die.

Although I have worked in the Chicago theater community for over 10 years now, I have always felt that Chicago has too many theater companies. Too many Chicago companies can't attract an audience or are stuck in the conventions of the past.

An arts policy professor at the University of Chicago, recently remarked that theaters and policy makers should not neglect the informal arts happening in our communities. Backyard poetry readings, quilting circles, garden clubs, and graffti artists all have a place in the American arts landscape.

[Tony Adams]

Jocelyn, small theatres die all the time. Of course new ones are born all the time. . . Most come and go without being noticed by most casual observers.

Should some theare companies die, or should certain ones die?