This book is about co-leadership: A leadership practice and structure often found in arts organizations that consist of two or three executives who bridge the art and business divide at the top.
Many practitioners recognize this phenomenon but the research on this topic is limited and dispersed. This book assembles a coherent overview and presents new insights of the field. While co-leadership is well institutionalized in the West, it is also criticized for management’s constraint of artistic autonomy and for its pluralism that dilutes leadership clarity. However, co-leadership also personifies the strategic objectives of art, audiences, organization, and community, by addressing plural logics – navigating the demands of artistic vision and organizational stability. It is an integrating solution. The authors investigate its specifics in the arts, including global practice and its interdisciplinary nature. The theoretical frame of plural leadership supports their empirical explorations of the dynamics within the co-leadership relationship and with organizational stakeholders. Data includes the voices of co-leaders, artists, staff, and board members from arts organizations in Canada and Norway. Their abductive reflection generates a stimulating research experience.
By viewing co-leadership in action, not as a study of static theories, the book will appeal not only to students and researchers but also resonate with practitioners in arts and cultural management and assist them to work with co-leadership and to manage its tensions.
Author(s): Wendy Reid, Hilde Fjellvær
Series: Routledge Research in the Creative and Cultural Industries
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 288
City: London
Cover
Endorsements
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
List of Tables
List of Figures
Foreword
Acknowledgements
1. Introducing and summarizing the book
Overview
Understanding co-leadership as plural leadership
Applying the practice of co-leadership in the arts
Criticizing co-leadership
Researching post-heroic and heroic plural leadership
Justifying this topic … in a book
Structuring the book
Summarizing the book
Chapter 1
Section I – Framing the research
Section II – Theorizing relational dynamics in arts co-leadership
Section III – Theorizing organizational dynamics with arts co-leadership
Section IV – Structuring co-leadership research and practice
SECTION I: Framing the research
2. Interpreting organizational context for arts co-leadership
Introduction
Understanding organizational pluralism and multiple logics
Pluralism
Societal framing theories
Reconciling organizational pluralism
Professional identity
Exploring leadership in a culture of ambiguity in pluralistic organizations
Analysing arts organization logics
The artistic ideal
The social impact of art
The inspirational and educational impact of art
Artistic innovation
Summary commentary
Conclusion
3. Parsing co-leadership theory for the arts
Introduction
Categorizing plural leadership
Identifying founding concepts
Executive role constellation and shared role space
Specialization, differentiation, and complementarity
Organizational design and governance
Stability versus fragility
Extending core issues through recent co-leadership research
Conflict and collaboration
Trust
Equality versus hierarchy
Celebrity and charisma
Using ambiguity to manage executive relationships
Highlighting arts contributions to co-leadership research
Synthesizing key findings from the co-leadership literature
Linking to the empirical chapters
4. Situating co-leadership in the arts globally
Introduction
Exploring the contextual influences
The role of art and artists in society
The presence of cultural policy and funding
The application and value of arts management training
Institutionalized art discipline practices
Conceptualizing variations of co-leadership practice: Developing a typology
Sharing responsibilities and work in start-ups
Formally dividing the roles from within the organization
Mandating the roles
Conclusion: Environments for single and co-leadership
SECTION II: Theorizing relational dynamics in arts co-leadership
5. Working with interdependence: Logics, values, and the shared role space
Understanding dimensions of co-leadership and the shared role space
Managing co-existing and competing logics
Sharing the role space
Type A: Overarching integration of logics
Type B: Balanced integration of logics
Type C: Moderately balanced integration of logics – uneven occupation of role space
Type D: Balanced integration of logics – disconnected in the role space
Type E: Conditional dominant and balanced integration of logics – living well together
Type F: Dominant logic – dominant role meets balancing co-leader
Type G: Dominant-dominant integration of logics – quiet resistance
Integrating multiple logics within a shared role space
Comparing with other contexts
Challenging the achievement of innovation
Conclusion
6. Challenging equality: Pluralism, competitive conflict, and social hierarchy
Introduction
Attributing co-leadership status
Social hierarchy differences and logics within arts co-leadership
Power sources
Status
Conflict
Researching co-leadership status conflict in the arts
Status conflict practices
Being silent or absent
Testing and insisting
Competing expertise
Intimidating
Co-opting a superior authority
Conclusion
7. Contending with ambiguity and vulnerability: Leaps of faith and mechanisms of trust
Introduction
Explaining trust theory
Understanding trust in the arts context
Making sense of the data
Proxy 1: Knowledge of the art discipline
Proxy 2: Experience in an executive role
Proxy 3: Promotion from within the organization
Contributing to trust in co-leadership
Leaps of faith
Trust-building mechanisms
Practical learning
SECTION III: Theorizing organizational dynamics with arts co-leadership
8. Managing risk: Board-staff relations, co-leadership, and information asymmetry
Introduction
Governance logics in the non-profit sector
Board-staff relations
Stakeholder perspectives
Arts non-profit governance context
Researching arts governance with co-leadership
Patterns of practice
Pattern 1: Unique board member relationships with each co-leader
Pattern 2: Delegation of a governance relationship with the AD
Pattern 3: Board intervention in problematic co-leadership relationships
Discussion and conclusion
9. Following and influencing co-leaders
Introduction
Follower-centred leadership
Plural leadership
Role theory
Studying senior management followers of co-leadership
Providing expertise
Debating strategy
Reinforcing
Mediating
Compensating
Insights regarding co-leadership, role crafting, and distributed leadership
SECTION IV. Structuring co-leadership research and practice
10. Charting insights and a future research course: What and who, how, where, and why?
Introduction
What and who?
How?
The co-leaders’ relationship in the shared role space
Competing logics – Their influence and integration
Leadership and governance
Where?
Why?
Influence of mission
Balancing pluralism
Contextual pluralism and ambiguity
Governance dynamics
Research methodology issues
Comparative research
Stakeholder engagement in co-leadership
Research methodology and theorizing
Conclusion
Index
