Leading the arts
by Vincent Ciccarello
Associate
Professor Jo Caust's PhD thesis has confirmed what many arts
administrators have known all along, that managing an arts company is
very different to running a company that produces widgets.
Caust, who is academic leader of the Arts and Cultural
Management Program in the School of Management, set out to explore concepts
of leadership and creativity within six South Australian arts organisations.
Some of her findings have important implications for how arts companies are
governed.
"The idea that arts are businesses first and foremost is highly
problematic," she said. "You have to run an arts organisation in a
business-like way but if your goal is a single bottom line, you're in
trouble, because arts companies are about the nurturing of creativity and
art."
The responses from the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, State Theatre Company,
Carclew, Australian Dance Theatre, Fringe Festival and the Jam Factory to
Caust's surveys suggest "leadership" within arts organisations is generally
understood to be embedded in the artistic leadership, not in the positional
or management leadership.
"Leadership isn't necessarily seen in the role of the CEO or the general
manager. Leadership is equated with artistic leadership by most people in
these organisations," Caust said.
It suggests a "dual leadership" model – in which the
artistic leader and general manager are on the same level and report
directly to the board – may therefore be a preferable arts organisation's
structure.
"It's a dynamic thing and the chemistry has to be right between the people,
but if they can get that right, it can be fabulous," Caust said. "But at the
moment, the tendency is to have one person in the primary reporting role."
More often than not, that person tends to be a "business" person. However,
the surveys also found people in arts organisations believe the person in
the positional leadership/management role needs to be perceived as someone
with both arts knowledge and management skills.
"There is also a tendency to advertise for a business person
first because it's about the board seeing the organisation as a business. I
put the question, would you think about putting somebody in charge of a car
company who knew nothing about the automotive industry? The same should
apply to the arts.
"If you're training people to run arts organisations, it is a special field
that does require knowledge of the arts first and foremost, and an
understanding about how artists work."
Caust sees her PhD thesis as a pilot study for a broader look at how arts
organisations work and she is currently exploring research project ideas to
examine the influence of the business model on arts organisations.