The spotlight of a crisis environment illuminates the character, values, and worth of a leader. As you prioritize functions, maintain order, and move the enterprise’s decision-making horizon further ahead, be reminded of the following principles for effective crisis management: Take stock of your assets. Maximize the good will and revenue potential of those programs and services whose value is increased by the new and changing environment. Manage time. Manage key external decisions. Manage perception of the crisis by key audiences. Review delegation in light of the tasks at hand. And think “collective impact.” This concludes a series of blogs intended to stimulate dialog about characteristics desirable in leaders during crises, the ways effective crisis managers think, the special needs and opportunities for leadership during crises, and the management principles that prove most valuable during crises.

Venus De Mars and Luke Stewart are among the 11 exemplary music artist nominees for Americans for the Arts’ 2020 Johnson Fellowship for Artists Transforming Communities featured in our ongoing ARTSblog series. At different career stages, these artist-activists may be considered by some on the musical fringes. What they hold in common is a steady and deliberate dedication to bringing their communities out of the margins and advancing and improving conditions for them to thrive. As a punk rock singer-songwriter and transgender woman, Venus’ performances, speaking, and compassionate presence have created spaces of affirmation and communion for transgender people and fostered openness and understanding among audiences across the gender spectrum. Luke moves effortlessly between artist communities in jazz, DIY punk rock, and, most of all, improvised music. He uses his improvisation skills to be alert to and advance conditions that will allow musicians across these genres to create, perform, and learn from one another, while expanding appreciation and audiences for their work.

This blog considers leadership action during the kind of crisis caused by a ubiquitous challenge that imperils the value in many kinds of transactions and organizations. Its examples are current actions being taken by the arts and cultural community in the following ways: Demonstrating concern for the challenges others face; making a special effort in a crisis environment to learn the current values and priorities of your stakeholders; taking advantage of opportunities to demonstrate the ways in which you can be of value and service consistent with your mission; motivating your stakeholder groups such as board and donors with opportunities to play meaningful roles to advance recovery and reposition the enterprise; and considering the lasting benefits of leading collective coping and organizing strategies. Treating others with empathy, generosity, and family feeling when everyone shares adversity will strengthen their support for you now and in the future.

During the kind of crisis caused by a ubiquitous challenge that disrupts the general operational environment, how can we stimulate, organize, and retrieve our best thinking when we need it? Where your daily actions and thoughts take you is going to provide you with questions and observations and insights, but not necessarily when you want them or when you can use them. But, if you organize your thoughts as they happen, you’ll position yourself to use and communicate them clearly, when the occasion is right, and in a way that both shows the reasoning and how your ideas will apply in the future. In mid-crisis, it’s difficult to make decisions about the future because so many variables are unclear, but it’s very useful to recognize and prepare for the kinds of decisions that will need to made in the very near future.

What should artistic and cultural leaders aspire to exemplify and accomplish in a time of crisis? Some crises are caused by an operational problem that approaches or passes a point where the survival of the enterprise is at risk. Other crises may impact before their cause is readily understood, with such impact or with such complexity that a leader must act before optimal information can be gathered. Let us focus on a third kind of crisis: one caused by a ubiquitous challenge that imperils the value in many kinds of transactions and organizations, threatening or disrupting the general operational environment. The COVID-19 pandemic fits this description. So does racism (about which there are many lessons to be learned by considering for whom this issue has been a crisis their entire lives and for whom this issue is perceived as a crisis more recently—and why). This blog is intended to stimulate dialog about characteristics desirable in leaders during crises, the ways effective crisis managers think, the special needs and opportunities for leadership during crises, and the management principles that prove most valuable during crises. 

In this blog, we feature Courtney Bryan and Ashleigh Gordon, two of the 11 music artists who were the exemplary nominees for the 2020 Johnson Fellowship. As consummate musicians in contemporary genres, each thrives on the stimulation of artistic collaboration with fellow musicians, poets, writers, and dancers, but also drives the collective work that builds strength as socially engaged artists. These artists advance self-representation and advocate for cultural equity in the music field, creating music and curating programs that showcase and elevate Black culture and excellence. Importantly, themes of racial justice serve as sources of inspiration and a reservoir of strength in their ongoing support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Committed to spirit and always to beauty, Bryan’s music responds to the present, confronting contemporary social injustices in her home city of New Orleans and across the globe. In her home community of Boston, Gordon is a musical force whose goal is to foster cultural curiosity about, and celebrate the music of, Black composers.