Dear Colleagues:  It was a pleasure working with Brent Lyles on the just
published Muselines from the Texas Museum Association.  Brent's thoughtful
article on civic engagement was an impetus for the article I wrote in the
same issue entitled, Empowering Leaders in Every Department.  I've included
it below for those who do not receive Muselines.  It came out of a workshop
I developed for an AAM professional development meeting held in San Antonio
earlier this year, in partnership with the Texas Museum Association -- a
very proactive and forward thinking organization.  Here it is.  If you have
any questions, or want additional information, please contact me at
212.779.7059; or through our website at www.artstaffing.com  Cheers, Geri
Thomas, President, Thomas & Associates, Inc.

Empowering Leaders in Every Department
Geri Thomas, Thomas & Associates, Inc., NY, 2002.

Having worked in museums for many years, both in the United States and
abroad, I now have the privilege of interviewing museum staff across the
country  --- from directors to administrators -- and very often because a
board has asked me to step in at what I call a "leadership crisis moment."
Recently, these "moments" have ranged from staff asking that a director
resign; the hard realities, economic or otherwise, that lead to
restructuring departments or entire divisions; staff burnout; or to see why
the application of a commercial business model is unable to solve issues of
productivity and accountability.

There is a perceived leadership crisis in both the private and public
sectors, and leadership theories abound. The tragic world events of the past
year and the current disillusionment with business, civic, and religious
institutions have called into question our very notions of what leadership
is, who can rightly be called a leader, or why leadership matters.
Corporations and the private sector have been quick to adopt various
leadership theories over the years, for better or worse, but museums are
just now beginning to appreciate the value of staff development training in
this area.  Increasingly, my associates and I are working with museums to
offer opportunities to provide leadership training for all levels of staff
to meet mission and business goals. The emotional intelligence and primal
leadership theories of Daniel Goleman, coupled with Warren Bennis' focus on
the individual, and a touch of practical Dale Carnegie, adapt well for the
museum community with its social context and emphasis on inclusion and
process.  Training crafted from these theorists has the potential to empower
leaders in every museum department, increase staff potential, and make
museums better places in which to work.

Warren Bennis, founding chair of the Leadership Institute at the University
of Southern California, has worked extensively with not-for-profit
organizations and businesses alike, and is the author of numerous books and
articles on leadership and management theory.  Bennis
believes that a shift in the paradigm of leadership needs to occur since
many myths about leadership pervade our thinking.  Two myths that are
particularly relevant when working with museum staff are that leadership
exists only at the top of an organization, and that leaders are born not
made.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Using these principles in museum leadership training sessions, we ask
participants to recall what persons were considered leaders in their
families and what were the characteristics or traits that made them a
leader.  In addition to fathers and mothers, other family leaders are named,
including siblings, grandparents and an occasional wizened aunt or uncle.
When participants are asked who they consider to be leaders in the museum,
responses are even more varied -- director, department head, registrar, head
of a project, the lead visitor service representative, the chair of the
board.  The characteristics named for both groups include trust, vision,
responsibility, empathy, and the ability to share knowledge and make
decisions. Through these and other training exercises, it becomes evident
that there are many leadership roles within the museum, and that leadership
traits are competencies that can be developed through self-reflection and
commitment.  Sessions like these are particularly useful for museums that
are experiencing a lack of accountability among staff, or where individual
and group responsibility needs to be bolstered or encouraged.

In his groundbreaking work, Emotional Intelligence, and subsequently in
Primal Leadership, Daniel Goleman and his colleagues at Harvard reason that
how we conduct ourselves and our relationships may contribute more to
personal and organizational success than our IQ. The emotional climate
within an organization can either make for a productive, balanced -- or
resonant -- environment, or the opposite can occur: poor working
relationships can turn an atmosphere into one of dissonance, doom and gloom.
No one wins; few are happy; individuals and the organization struggles.

In our initial interviews with museum staff across the country, we ask the
question "what does your museum feel like," based on Goleman's premise that
there is a link between the human climate of an organization and
performance.  Overwhelmingly, initial answers start with the statement that
"we are a dedicated staff…", followed by real concerns regarding the quality
of relationships and the lack of communications.  We try to tune into the
emotional climate of the museum and how individuals give and get information
through an exercise where participants discover their unique communication
style and learn to recognize and appreciate the styles of others.  Less
threatening than Myers-Briggs, and more fun, it is an immediate
self-assessment tool and a real-time learning experience.  It also
contributes to organizational awareness and coupled with other activities,
can assist in breaking down the perceived divide between the "business" and
"creative" sides of the museum.

The long-held leadership model in Dale Carnegie Training emphasizes
empowerment -- rather than pushing people to meet deadlines and objectives,
leadership is more about "creating environments that influence others to
achieve group goals."   The Carnegie focus is on developing skills or
competencies based on people (relationship) skills, self-directed
individuals and work groups, and leading towards continual improvement.
Through activities utilizing some of these principles, participants in our
training sessions learn to make shifts towards thinking more as a leader.
Where traditionally a supervisor might say "It's your job," or "You report
to me," a more leadership-focused statement would be "Tell me how I can
support you."  In this scenario, people are more readily able and willing to
accept responsibility, become accountable, utilize their strengths and
knowledge, and work collaboratively.  These empowerment principles are
particularly useful for museums that recognize the benefits of teams across
divisions, departments or functions -- leadership and management teams;
exhibition development teams; education and programmatic teams, etc.

Museums are not businesses, but they must be run in a business-like manner.
The goals of the museum are different than business; instead of profits,
museums are driven by their mission, a much more elusive measure of success.
Yet museums and museum staff need to become even more accountable for the
work they do.  Museum work-life is often not easy.  Although museum
professionals are the source of progressive, often revolutionary ideas --
like inclusion, diversity, the meaningful display of cultures -- there
remains a large gap in the quality of the museum workplace.  Meaningful and
productive communications, or lack thereof, accountability, recognition, and
compensation are areas cited most often that need improvement.

No single leader can save the day.  In museums and in the larger society,
effective leadership will need to be based on empowerment, respect, team
building and collaboration.  What the leadership theories of Bennis, Goleman
and Carnegie have in common is the development of the self: self-awareness,
self-development, and self-management.  This keen awareness of who we are
and how relationship skills are vital for individual and group achievement
and satisfaction affect the quality of the museum workplace and, ultimately,
the way in which the museum presents itself to its varied internal and
external audiences.

Geri Thomas is President of Thomas & Associates, Inc., an innovative firm
that offers staffing, consulting and staff development training to museums
and art businesses nationwide.  She has conducted numerous leadership
sessions for individual museums and boards, and communications and
leadership workshops through the American Association of Museums.  As
Adjunct Professor at New York University, she teaches Museum Management in
the School of Continuing and Professional Studies.

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