As the latest report from the Hewlett Foundation points out, “The nonprofit arts sector is at a critical inflection point…” While there is risk in every path we choose to move forward, I believe great opportunity lies in collaboration between an older generation that worked tirelessly to build the current set of organizations and a new, hungry and highly skilled generation of arts administrators, ready to tackle today’s new challenges.

Ultimately we must solve the problem of how a field limited by funds and vertical job mobility, harness and retain talent? The findings suggest a need for a national discussion about redefining the role and meaning of leadership and how it affects the structure of our organizations. Distributed leadership is proposed as one solution to our current risk of losing emerging talent. I would also add cultivating the learnable skills leaders use. With both these ideas at work, I believe we can unlock value buried in the untapped human capital in our field.

1. Greater utilization of resources

Distributed leadership will put early/mid-career leaders to work at what they are best at, and expose abilities that will help the organization beyond their given job. The challenge of empowering these leaders falls to the Executive Director to uncover those talents, and decide how to utilize them.

An example of unlocked potential that can affect the bottom line is the idea that everyone should be part of the marketing and development teams. When we aren’t concerned where good ideas come from, we can move towards a structure where everyone feels some ownership of these critical, revenue-producing areas.

2. Retention

Losing talent doesn’t just thin out the next generation of leaders but costs organizations dollars. Brijendra Chaudhary’s article on Attrition Cost does a nice job of breaking down the costs of losing an employee from time loss to hiring costs to stress on the organization. One estimate suggests that it costs 80% of a yearly salary. Now imagine we took that money and increased a salary by 16% for 4 years instead. 

3. Capacity to deal with change

As the world changes at an increasingly fast pace, the only way we can hope to adapt is to create an ecosystem where everyone in our organizations can make some autonomous decisions about how to adjust. This is only possible with clearly articulated shared values and vision. When that happens leaders throughout the organization are able to make decisions on their own. Is it a risky? Yes. Does it require trust? Yes. Do we want an organization with loyal talent who are making decisions based on shared vision and articulated strategy? Absolutely. 

4. Time

Old or young, Executive Directors don’t have enough time to focus on the “big” questions and long-term sustainability for their organizations. 

This additional time allows Executive Directors to:

1. Create space to reflect and think deeply.
2. Oversee the organization’s development of strategies and key priorities.
3. Develop internal talent.
4. Unlock the value of the human capital on hand.
5. Devise a structure that nurtures and retains young talent.

To that final point, I recommend finding ways to keep early/mid-career leaders in motion. While upward mobility may not be possible, organizations can make sure their talent continues to grow, assume new responsibilities, and that leadership responsibilities are delegated away to increase capacity across the organization.

5. Executive Self Development:

Developing our emerging early and mid-career leaders can only happen if there is buy-in from the top. EDs are staying around longer so we need to pay special attention to getting them access to leadership skills and training to guide their organizations through a changing landscape. As a consultant and professor at Columbia Business School, I have come to believe that these skills are essential and more importantly, learnable. I’ve seen hundreds of successful, competent senior executives from the for-profit sector immerse themselves in these skill sets and emerge as transformational leaders. 

Some of these skills are as simple as improving communication. Leaders as active listeners have a dramatic impact on their organizations. It correlates to higher levels of psychological safety, trust, job satisfaction, commitment, performance, and critically a negative correlation to burnout for employees.

Executive Directors who do this self-development will be open to conversation about how to effectively restructure their organizations and be open to the ideas and talents locked inside.

Finally, a recommendation of the report is to pursue shared values of diversity and innovation.  I want to suggest we start at simply shared values cross-generationally. These are essential for an organization to run smoothly. When multi-generational colleagues can come to a shared understanding of what drives them and their specific organizations they will be able to collaborate at a higher level. Diversity will flourish, ideas will flow and colleagues will unite to achieve common goals.

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s report, Moving Arts Leadership Forward, describes a changing arts leadership and workforce. Americans for the Arts, in partnership with the Hewlett Foundation, has asked a diverse group of arts leaders to respond to the report’s findings and the recommendations it makes for the field.