Authenticity Comes First in Equitable Museum Workplaces

Posted: February 24, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Authentic, Diversity, gender equity, Human Resources, Leadership, Museum, museum staff, Organizational Values, Servant Leader, Workplace Values | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

haw

How many of you are museum leaders? Are you lonely? If you’re nodding, you’re not the only one. By some estimates, 42-percent of for-profit leaders confess to feeling lonely all or part of the time. Leadership is isolating. You’re happy in your job; it’s challenging, but there are things that can’t be shared. Some days are stressful. You know things you can’t un-know, and the decisions you make often feel like they’re yours alone.

There are ways to make the top spot less isolating. You can allow yourself to be vulnerable with your leadership team. By learning to express feelings–as opposed to parsing problems–you model vulnerability and build trust. You can create a peer group or ‘kitchen cabinet’ that you meet with regularly to share frustrations, ideas, and to problem solve. You may also have close friends, unconnected with your museum, who listen well or a few well-placed mentors. Those outlets are yours and yours alone. And they don’t put you in the position of treating any of your staff or leadership team differently.

There are families, governments, and workplaces where power masquerades as friendship, love or connection. It is, to quote a Latin phrase we’ve all heard too much recently, a quid pro quo. Grandparents pay for college tuition, but only if they select the school. A town official looks the other way when a local non-profit needs a variance, but then asks the non-profit to support something else in exchange. A museum leader wants her staff to like her so she adjusts their schedules to accommodate their personal circumstances. These are all ways to create connection and make an individual feel liked. The only problem is they aren’t sustainable because they’re based not in authenticity and equity, but on transaction.

These days when we say the words workplace equity, what comes to mind is race, gender, access, and the way we treat one another in the museum workplace. But far from values statements and HR policies there’s day-to-day life where equity happens, and the ongoing question of who gets what. Who gets noticed? Who is hourly and who is salaried? Who gets to work on plum assignments? Who gets to travel on the museum’s dime? Who never met a deadline that wasn’t moveable? Who leaves early for soccer practice? Who is chronically late, but excused? Who is plucked from the group to meet with a trustees? Whose work is nominated for a prize? We could go on, but you get the picture.

Part of leadership’s isolation is leaders can’t have favorites. As a leader, you need to understand and tame your own biases, and you can’t use your power to grant favors for those you like. Creating an equitable workplace means….

  • Starting with your employee handbook: Looking at the language. Might it affect one demographic differently than another? Can you fix it?
  • Does your museum have a values statement? If so, how do you use it to guide daily practice? If not, why not?
  • Do your rules about personal leave apply to everyone equitably? For example, are family leave — human leave — available equitably, because life comes at us all fast? And do you permit personal time that recognizes not all of us celebrate the same holidays at the same time? A small thing, but a nod that your organization embraces and supports difference.
  • Are rules about promotion and professional development transparent?
  • How are new ideas heard? How hard is it for an idea to make its way from the hourly staff to the salaried staff? If it’s challenging does that reinforce the idea that salaried staff are the idea makers? Where is the inequity in that?

Museum workplaces are microcosms of the wider world. As a leader you and your board have the opportunity to create and shape an organizational culture that is human-centered and fair. In many ways the workplace you create has a profound impact on the way your organization appears in the world. (If you need an example of what an organization looks like that neglects values and does not keep its staff safe, seen and supported, look no further than the Philadelphia Museum of Art, fast becoming the poster child for an unethical work environment.)

You can’t control each and every staff person’s behavior, but you can create a place where staff feel respected and nurtured. So build human-centered policies, and don’t let them languish. Apply them and watch your staff flourish.

Joan Baldwin

Image: Museum of Happiness

Working and Leading Through Tears

Posted: August 4, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: Authentic, Communication, Leadership, Museum, Workplace Values | Tags: , , , | 3 Comments

Theresa May

Picture this: You’re in a meeting with a direct report. Things are not going well. Her creative impulse seems laser focused on deconstructing everything you’ve built. You cannot understand how someone who’s ostensibly a colleague, and who came to work for you willingly, has misunderstood you and your museum to such a degree. Suddenly you’re crying. Worse, you’re angry that you’re crying, which makes your tears harder to control. Sound familiar? Well it should. According to a 2018 survey, 45-percent of people report crying at work.

Even if you’re in the dry-eyed 55-percent of American workers, given that we toil outside our homes an average of 90,000 hours in a lifetime, and one third of us work more than 45 hours every week, it’s likely, some day, some time, you’re going to cry at work. Is crying a bad thing? The experts say not really. According to the same survey, CFO’s and people over 55 are the most forgiving when it comes to tears, reporting that unless it happens frequently, it’s not a problem. Crying is after all a human emotion, and far less toxic than yelling, which also happens in some workplaces.

As with many things in life, how crying is perceived depends on context and culture. In fact, the person crying often reacts more negatively than those around her who may not know how to react. Crying, after all, violates what anthropologists call “display rules” or a social group’s informal norms. Traditionally, our workplaces–and museums and heritage organizations are still wallowing in a whole lot of tradition when it comes to human behavior–aren’t places for overt emotion; ergo, don’t cry.

If you identify as a woman, you may be told by mentors, friends and leaders to avoid crying at the office like the plague. Why? Because museum workplaces are staffed by humans, not Artificial Intelligence, and humans are full of subconscious biases. For many, whether we acknowledge it or not, crying indicates weakness, emotionality, and a loss of credibility. And women who cry are treated as if the next stop is a rest cure and  basket weaving classes.

There are biological reasons that women cry more than men. Women have more prolactin, a hormone that stimulates tears, while men’s higher testosterone levels may prevent them from crying. Men cry less frequently than women at work, but those who do are generally not penalized. Crying somehow humanizes men, while in women it can mark them as weak or hysterical.

This leads women to slink alone to the bathroom, where they sob in a stall before returning to their desks as if nothing happened. But something did. And weirdly, the way your workplace handles crying may be an indicator of how evolved and inclusive it is. In an old school, hierarchical, and male-dominated workplace, crying is a red flag. If it happens too often, your tears–and everything they represent– stamp you with a sign that says “emotional,” and future moves become challenging when you’re described as a good worker, but too emotional. In a more inclusive work environment, where stress is acknowledged, crying is shrugged off as part and parcel of being human in a complex and demanding world.

So what should you do if you find yourself in tears at work: 

  • Acknowledge what’s happening–“I’m upset and I need a moment here”–and step away. Blot your tears, breathe deeply, return.
  • Do a self-check in. (If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know we advocate for weekly check-ins.) Are you under an undue amount of stress? At home? At work? Are you getting enough sleep, exercise, time for yourself? If the answer is no, can you change any of those patterns?
  • If you know some situations make you prone to tears–the board member who winds you up, the umpteenth building crisis with the misogynist plant manager, the unnecessarily sassy staff member–plan for them. You know what frustrates you makes you cry, and once you cry, you’re angry, and things escalate. Anticipate situations like this by role playing and rehearsing ahead of time so you respond with words not emotion.

If you’re a museum leader, and a member of your team cries:

  • Be kind. Be mindful that it’s not all about you. Or even necessarily about work. You have no idea what’s going on in your staff member’s life. Instead, ask whether there is anything you can do, and whether they want to be alone for a little while.
  • Normalize the behavior with a phrase like, “I think we’re all a bit stressed at the moment.” Again, offer the person crying space if they need it.
  • If it’s appropriate, respond with your own story of crying at work. In doing so, you  help create a culture that’s accepting, not embarrassed, about emotion.

How do you deal with emotion in the museum workplace? Let us know.

Yours for a tear-free August.

Joan Baldwin

 

 

5 Reasons We’re Grateful to be in the Museum Field

Posted: November 27, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: Authentic, History Museums, Leadership, Museum, museum career, Servant Leader | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

Frank Vagnone

Above: Old Salem President Frank Vagnone doing his own bit of hands-on learning
at the museum.

While my position is “Curator,” it’s for a school not a museum so a lot of daily museum life passes me by. Recently, though, I visited Franklin Vagnone, in Winston Salem, NC. Frank is one of my heroes, a museum thought leader who is generous, truthful, and authentic. For those of you who don’t know, Frank is President of Old Salem Museum & Gardens, a position he’s held for just about a year. Frank also runs Twisted Preservation his cultural consulting firm, work that takes him around the world, thinking, talking, and quite literally shaking up traditional stand-behind-the-rope sorts of historic house interpretation. (And if you are a historic site person, and haven’t read his book, Anarchist’s Guide to Historic House Museums you should probably order it. Today.)

Anyway, part of the fun of visiting museum colleagues on their home turf is you get to be a tourist with the best of all possible guides: the museum leader. The weather was beautiful, and Old Salem is ridiculously picturesque, but better than all of that there were close to 1,000 school children on site, accompanied by parents, teachers and younger siblings. It was awesome. Surrounded by shouts of “It smells good in here!” and “Look at this!,” it reminded me why I got into this business in the beginning. And looking back on being engulfed in nine year olds busy folding laundry and trying to make a rope bed—the barriers in the Old Salem Brother’s House are gone—it made me grateful to be a museum person or at least part of the wider museum community.

We’ve talked about some dark stuff on these pages: sexual harassment; workplace bullying; bad boards; and most recently, the trials of searching for a job in a way too crowded field. But at heart, and I can’t speak for all of you, it’s a field we love. And part of why we love it is that sharing is fun, whether it’s sharing knowledge–how did people without electricity read in bed?–or sharing experience–folding a large linen shirt isn’t as easy as it looks—or sharing an explanation–like why static electricity makes your hair stand up–or looking for answers: Why do an artist’s brush strokes move in one direction and not the other? That joint search for answers, whether it’s with excited elementary students or committed and curious adults, is a journey worth taking. So here are my top five reasons to be grateful for being in this field:

  1. I get to work, meet, and speak with some truly fabulous humans, who challenge and change the museum world.
  2. Being in a museum, as opposed to being on the Internet, means being in the presence of something real. That brings its own awesomeness.
  3. Being in the museum world means we’re often in the presence of beauty, and it’s ours to care for as best we can.
  4. The objects, art, scientific discoveries, even the plants and animals we care for, all have stories, and it’s an honor to share stories with the public.
  5. Museums are metaphors for so much else. Each well-worn spinning wheel, each deKooning sketch, each set of medical instruments is a window into another place and moment. We’re the bridge, and that’s a great place to be.

Does this field make you grateful? Why?

Joan Baldwin

Saying What You Mean & Getting Better at What You Do

Posted: June 12, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: active listening, Authentic, Communication, Leadership, Museum, museum career, Nonprofit Leadership, Self-Aware, Work Habits | Tags: , , , | 1 Comment

Just Sayin'

This post is a two-parter. First, it’s about saying what you mean. This is a big deal for museum leaders who often think they communicate clearly, only to find, when things go wrong, how lame their skills are. But whether you occupy the fancy office and go to lunch with trustees or not, you still need good communication skills. Here are five things you need:

  • Be a good listener: Say you’re a curator. A colleague asks why boxes in your storage area are stacked close to the heating pipes. There are 1,000 ways to answer the question from “All our storage is inadequate and this is the best of many bad choices,” to “This is temporary while we empty another area,” to “Gosh, I was so anxious about the mold I found last week, closer to the ceiling seemed like a good thing.”  But what if you don’t hear the question? What if what you hear is an attack on your skills as curator and your personal worth? The answer you give in that situation is likely to be different, less helpful, and since you feel personally attacked, may escalate a fairly innocuous situation.
  • Don’t withhold information: Sometimes we don’t say what we mean because we’re locked in a silent power struggle with a colleague. That person may be struggling too in which case only a minimum of information gets through. Remember, work is work. You all serve the museum, heritage or arts organization. Focus on what the other person needs, provide the best answer you can, and surprise, surprise, your next interaction may be different, but in a good way.
  • Do not babble: Do not go down conversational rat holes. Channel your inner Hemingway. Be simple, concise, and specific.
  • Try to check your ego at the door: Great communicators make everyone else feel like they’re the only people in the room. Why? Because they communicate with authenticity and care. Try pausing for a moment or two before answering a question. Reflect on whether the question is about you and your skill level or whether it’s about the collection items next to the ceiling.
  • When you’re wrong, say you’re wrong: If you snapped at the curator about the boxes, we hope you’re self aware enough to figure out what happened and apologize. Conversely, if you’re the curator, who responded as if you’d been slapped rather than as if a concerned colleague also cared about the collection, apologize. Don’t wait. Don’t write absurd narratives in your head about why this isn’t the right time to talk. Just do it. A real apology offered human-to-human builds trust. There’s no better ingredient for workplace communication.

And now to getting better at what you do: There’s likely a book waiting to be written on the perfectionism found in museums. It casts a pall over everything, putting dampers on experimentation and innovation because staff feels there is no room for risk. The results of too much perfectionism are often spectacularly mediocre.

We here at Leadership Matters constantly harp on reading widely so here are two very different articles. The first is from Outside Magazine on Getting Better. Yes, it’s about exercise, but it’s also full of stuff that applies to life without spandex and a water bottle. Learning to manage challenges, to break work into manageable chunks, to put the cell phone aside–those are skills that apply in the museum workplace just as much as the gym. And for a completely different voice, here is writer Jamaica Kincaid with advice on how to live and how to write. She too advocates less cell phone time and more focus. She’s also about learning how not to write crap, and she advocates not taking yourself too seriously. She is a writer after all. She lives on her imagination.

You are museum, humanities, and culture folk. You spend time trying to make art, living things, and objects speak. You need your imagination too.

Here in America’s Northeast we’re at the peak of the long days. That’s more time to pause, think about more skillful communication, and get better at what you do. Use it. Get better.

Joan Baldwin

 

 

 

http://lithub.com/jamaica-kincaid-on-how-to-live-and-how-to-write/?mc_cid=7dea5430fc&mc_eid=6778213390

A Letter, Some Advice, and Reading for New Museum Leaders

Posted: June 5, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: active listening, Authentic, Courage, Museum, museum career, Self-Aware, Servant Leader, Stay or go?, Work Habits, Work/life balance | Tags: , , , , | 1 Comment

napkins

In a week a friend and colleague of mine and Anne’s begins a new job. When all the papers were signed, and everything was real, she wrote to tell us the good news. Moving from a smaller organization to a much larger state-funded position, means she transitions from supervising a few to many.

Our friend and colleague is beginning a new chapter, and she isn’t alone. In the last year a number of our professional colleagues have gotten new jobs or new job titles. One thing distinguishes all these folks; not one thinks s/he has “arrived”. They are all learners. They read widely, observe carefully, and reflect. So while this annotated list is for them–you know who you are–we hope all our readers will find something they like.

For the Individual Leader/learner:

About the Business of Museums:

A Short list of books and Ted Talks for leaders:

Six Practices for Your First 100 Days from Leadership Matters:

  • Listen. Don’t wait for your turn to talk, listen.
  • Love what you do.
  • Participate before making decisions.
  • Model empathy and respect.
  • Practice reflection. Write, walk, meditate before or after work.
  • Identify your biases and work to leave them outside the office.

And, last, a poem from Mary Oliver:

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

—Mary Oliver taken from https://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/133.html

Good luck,

Joan Baldwin & Anne Ackerson

 

 

Museum Leadership in Trumplandia

Posted: February 5, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: Authentic, Community, Leadership, Museum, Self-Aware | Tags: , , , | 3 Comments

earth-day

If we were sitting in a darkened theater, watching film of the last 10 days we might actually laugh because some things seem so absurd. There is an Alice-Through-the-Looking-Glass quality to what are now known as “alternative facts.” But we aren’t in a movie theater; this seems to be life as we’re getting to know it. So with that in mind, here are some bullet points about museum leadership in Trumplandia.

  • Know your community. Embrace them all. Even the ones you as a leader might not easily befriend. Don’t preach to the choir. Be the place–whether through programming, exhibits or education programs–where everyone is acknowledged as someone who matters.
  • Know your collections. If you are master of a collection that reflects generations of white privilege, turn it on its head. Think about the work of Titus Kaphar and invite your city’s artists, photographers, and people to react to your collections. Find a way to say we may be the result of privilege, but as an institution we don’t behave that way.
  • Know your staff. How can you preach institutional open-mindedness if the staff break room tolerates cruel remarks or inequity. Make sure your institutional culture models how you want your museum to be in the world.
  • If you haven’t addressed your HR policy in a while or, God forbid, you don’t have one, use this moment. This is a world where the White House tells some of its staff to “dress feminine,” so make sure you have defined, know, and believe in your institutional policies. And while you’re at it, review your museum’s values statement.
  • Think about your Internet Use Policy. If you don’t have one, you have work to do. This is a time where change can happen in the second it takes to press the return button on a keyboard. How do you want staff to separate their work selves from their online selves?
  • Based on what you know about your community, collections and audience, talk with your board. Understand and internalize how political and engaged it wants the museum to be. Think about where and how you can push the envelope and what that will mean for you, your staff, and your institution. If you are active with social justice or political organizations separate from your museum, and are likely to be photographed, quoted or interviewed as part of your volunteer work, consider sharing that information ahead of time.
  • Be self-aware. Consider the necessity of self-editing. Which is more important to you: your right to free speech at a museum event or enraging a potential donor who doesn’t share your views? When in doubt, channel your inner Michelle Obama, and remember, “When they go low, we go high.”
  • Last, museums are such marvelous places. They can and should reflect their communities. Be the place that offers quiet in a world of tumult, welcomes everyone in a world of identity checks, treats its staff with kindness and equity, provides facts not alternative narratives, and encourages curiosity and engagement. Here’s an example for all of us from Cornell University’s Olin Library. Without taking a position, in the clearest possible language, it makes its point.

If there ever was a time for museums, heritage organizations, zoos and botanical gardens to push mediocrity aside and be the best they can be, this is it. Let us know how you are coping and changing in 2017.

Joan H. Baldwin

Museums and Women: Work Isn’t You

Posted: July 5, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Authentic, Leadership, Leadership Development, Mentoring, Museum, Self-Aware, Servant Leader | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

Pat Summitt

Last week Pat Summit died. You may not be a basketball fan or more specifically a women’s basketball fan, but if you’re interested in leadership, you could do worse than Google “Pat Summitt Quotes.” If her name means nothing to you, she was the University of Tennessee’s women’s basketball coach for four decades. And she has the distinction of being one of the best coaches in college sports–male or female–ever. Saturday, National Public Radio replayed an interview with her. You can find it here: Remembering Coach Pat Summitt. One quote particularly struck me, in part, because of an experience I had earlier in the week. First the experience: A female colleague of mine asked me to read a piece she had written. She is a good writer, and like all writers she wanted a second pair of eyes especially since her subject was institutional history, a combustible mix of facts, nostalgia, and personal experience at least in our 125-year old institution. Now, the quote:

LINDA WERTHEIMER, BYLINE: Did you ever think you were too tough?

SUMMITT: Not really (laughter). You know, I think you can challenge people, but you don’t want to break people down. But you’ve got to sometimes just pull them aside and say, you know, you’re OK but you could be better.

Perhaps you’ve already figured out, reading my colleague’s paper didn’t go well. As I’ve said, she’s a good writer, and some days, she far exceeds good. But not all of us are good all the time. And one thing I’ve observed about women in the workplace–myself included–is too often work and self are intertwined so if you’re challenged, it’s as if YOU are challenged, not the work, which even on the best days belongs to the organization, and more to the point, was created in its service. So, in a perfect world, criticism of a project/piece of writing/exhibit/you-name-it, is an exercise in how to make it better because in perfecting whatever it is, we aid the organization.

What does this have to do with the University of Tennessee’s late basketball coach? Think about her statement above. If you are a museum leader, think about challenging without breaking people. Some of us have had bosses who believe leadership is about domination. I worked for two different people, a man and a woman, who seemingly weren’t satisfied unless an employee left their office in tears. Clearly that’s not what Pat Summitt meant. She saw her role as pushing players to do their best, and the flip side of that is letting them know when their lack of effort let the program down. None of us is perfect, and it’s comforting to know that your director, department head or board chair, cares about you enough to help you do your best work.

If you’re an employee, you know when you’ve done something well–when your idea was a game changer, when your exhibit label said it perfectly–and you know when what you’ve done is mediocre. So step back. Breathe deep. And be ready not only to acknowledge what went wrong, but to hear your direct report when she offers suggestions for the future. She isn’t saying you’re a bad person, only that you are capable of more. Nor does one less than stellar project equal a judgement on all the work you’ve ever done. If you’re a good museum educator when you go into your director’s office, you’re still a good one when you come out, just one that needs to reflect, and go forward, having made some changes. Challenge yourself to de-personalize. It’s not your project, it’s the museum’s. It’s far easier to fix what you don’t “own.”

Be well,

Joan Baldwin

Are You a New Museum Leader?

Posted: August 17, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Authentic, Leadership, Museum, Nonprofit Leadership | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

scouts

Perhaps because I work at a school, September always marks the start of the year. And as this summer draws to a close, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be a new leader, not only because we have an interim head of school, but we are in a search for a new long-term leader.

Our interim head is an experienced person who, if he were a different sort, would be taking long walks on the beach and thinking deep thoughts, his working life over. But he’s made a life not only of leadership, but of being an interim. And we’ve all pinned a lot on him. Will he be change agent or maintainer?

Thinking about the months to come, made me wonder how many of you are starting new jobs, either as directors or department heads, and as you step into your office for the first time, whether you ponder what your staff think about you. Because I can assure you, they are all expecting something different. There are the naysayers, who are certain you and any other new leader will fail. In their minds, the job is too complicated and you can’t possibly understand what’s happened. They see the institutional history as a lengthy mistake-ridden narrative iced with gossip. You, poor benighted soul, cannot lead in a way that’s meaningful because you simply can’t cope with such a complex plot line.

Then there are the completely disengaged, those who tell you it really doesn’t matter who’s in your office, it won’t affect them. Or there are the folks who are convinced you’re the second coming. They have an almost Messianic zeal for your institution and they are waiting for you to right every wrong and also take care of the leaks in the west wing, and raise enough money so the museum won’t have to do that Holiday fundraiser, which they loathe. What’s interesting about these people is they have a very specific agenda and assume it must be yours as well. They also assume that their needs are everyone else’s. They will become naysayers when you don’t seem to be following through on their list.

There are also genuinely happy folks, busily engaged in work. Their needs may be more personal. They may hope you will challenge them, push them toward goals they haven’t yet thought of. Last, there may be some new staff, just like you. They are the ones who look like deer in the headlights. Not only do they not have a clue about what’s going on, they’re also terrified that what little they do know will change when you start talking.

So who will you be? And how will you adapt to the myriad expectations of your staff? Wait for it….yes, I’m going to say it…be yourself. It’s an old saw, but I assume, as you should, that whoever hired or promoted you, did so because they liked you. They intuited the youness of you and that’s what made them select you out of the thousands of eager souls with newly tweaked LinkIn pages.

And if you’ve been reading this blog for a while you know when we say be yourself, we mean the same authentic self you leave home with in the morning and bring to the workplace. That self knows where true north is, but doesn’t let its hair down and over share.

Clearly if you’ve met any of the folks in the list above, you know that pleasing all of them is about as likely as emptying a pond with a sieve. You can’t do it and you will make yourself and everyone else crazy if you try. In fact, I would argue that you’re not there to wave your wand and grant the staff’s wishes. You’re there to speak for the institution, which holds the public trust, and can’t speak for itself. You’re there to chart its course, in concert with your community, your board, AND your staff. So be your one true self. Bring your institutional vision to meetings, but be willing to wait. Hear all those folks with their different needs and agendas out. Lead, don’t manage. Listen, don’t dictate. And, above all, enjoy the adventure of charting a new course.

If you ARE new to your organization or your position, let us know about your experience.

Happy last weeks of summer,

Joan Baldwin

Friendship and Work: Do They Mix?

Posted: June 29, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Authentic, Leadership, Museum | Tags: | 2 Comments

draw the line

Our research for Leadership Matters tells us that a huge percentage of today’s museum leaders, at least in the United States, work in small organizations, often small history museums. Small museums–and by that we mean organizations with fewer than 10 staff–have their own leadership issues. One is certainly the line between friendship and work, and for the director, that may be the difference between authenticity and too much information or it may be the difference between being friendly and being friends. Because sadly, if you’re a director, your friends, your drinking buddies, the folks you let your hair down with, shouldn’t be your colleagues.

Why? Well, think about it from your staff’s point of view. Suppose you’re best friends with your curatorial assistant. Your children attend the same school. You see each other at soccer games. Your partners enjoy each other’s company. What’s not to like? Well nothing except for the moment when the board tells you that you need to make staff cuts. The obvious position to lose is the curatorial assistant, but, oh, wait, she’s not just the curatorial assistant. She’s your fellow soccer parent, sharer of red wine, and lover of Orange is the New Black. You’re smart. You see this isn’t going to work. And you see why. And yet, shouldn’t you be able to be friends with whomever you like? Yes, but not in this instance. In accepting a leadership position, you put the organization first, which may mean that friendships take a back seat to workplace harmony.

And what about the difference between friendly and friends or authenticity and TMI? As a leader you need to be your one, true self. You need to be that person for you AND for your staff, but there is a difference between your true self and your self on the Dr. Phil show. Understand the boundaries. Use your life as a metaphor sparingly. There is plenty your staff doesn’t want to know and could, in fact, be distressed by knowing. Instead, be true about your feelings rather than your biography.  Model humility. Model the genuine good morning instead of abusing a social convention as you grab coffee and head to your desk. While real friendships can cause workplace boundary issues, inauthentic friendliness sets off warning bells.

Does this make you the lonely leader? Not exactly. But  rather than making friends within your organization, assemble a group of peers from your region. My co-author, Anne Ackerson, refers to these folks as her posse. More honest than your parents, more understanding of your leadership role than your average acquaintance, these are the folks who know you and what you do. They are available when you’ve had one of those days or weeks. They show up with wine and food, but they’re not afraid to tell you that you’ve been a jerk.

So if you haven’t got a posse or you’ve never thought of your colleagues, friends and mentors like that, think about it. If you’re a leader–whether it’s an entire museum or  a department–learn to be friendly, but don’t look for work to replace family and friends. And as always, let us know how you manage this boundary.

Joan Baldwin

Why Does Authenticity Matter?

Posted: January 24, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Authentic, Leadership, Museum, Nonprofit Leadership | 2 Comments

faceinthemirror

It’s a snowy day here in the Northeast, a day best spent inside with Netflix and perhaps a few deep thoughts. So we’ve decided to take some time to look at one the four qualities of leadership we discovered in speaking with directors, CEOs and department heads for Leadership Matters. Since there is a long article in the January issue of the Harvard Business Review on authenticity we thought we’d start there. And if you’re passionate about leadership, but not an HBR reader, subscribe.

In Leadership Matters we weren’t so interested in what the 36 museum and heritage organization leaders had to say on the generalities of leadership itself. Instead, we wanted to know–and here’s the authenticity part–how they draw on their own stories to describe and interpret the leaders they are today. We were also curious how they used stories to relate to others. Herminia Ibarra, HBR’s writer, says that “Authenticity has become a gold standard for leadership.” Then she notes that a simplistic understanding of what authenticity means can leave many leaders feeling like their lives, both personal and professional, are under a microscope. In fact, what we discovered is being authentic isn’t about over-sharing. Knowing intimate details about a leader’s life doesn’t engender trust. Authenticity isn’t about confession or a Dr. Phil moment at every staff meeting. It’s about knowing your own story and understanding it so the truth comes through rather than the details. These biographical moments build a narrative. Leaders who use them, and use them well, are teaching more than they are revealing.

Ibarra writes, “But my research also demonstrates that the moments that most challenge our sense of self are the ones that can teach us the most about leading effectively. By viewing ourselves as works in progress and evolving our professional identities through trial and error, we can develop a personal style that feels right to us and suits our organizations’ changing needs.” In fact, like all the leadership characteristics we discuss in Leadership Matters, authenticity functions as a trope for the organization as well. An organization that knows itself acts with truth; it doesn’t need to ape other organizational styles because it understands its own. Like its leader, whose confidence allows her to fully engage with her staff and board, an authentic organization engages its audience truthfully.

Leadership is learned. Authenticity may be a quality you are not completely comfortable with, but as you go into work on Monday, think about why you are the person you are; think about that narrative. Where are the lessons? What are you comfortable revealing that shifts conversation and moves your team forward?

And as always, share your thoughts.

Joan H. Baldwin