Trust is Everything in Leadership

I came up in my career through nonprofit theater organizations. I am deeply proud of that expertise but also admit that I realized how little I knew about nonprofit governance about ten years ago when I started consulting outside my artsy corner of the sector. 

While we are fundamentally the same, in my experience, most theater and arts nonprofits are not governed like other funder-supported organizations. In the social service sector, it is common to find missions that were founded by a board that collectively hires and oversees executive leadership. In the arts, however, the artistic director is king. (Or, thankfully, more and more, queen.) Strange as this sounds, I think this is because of metrics, or lack thereof. We can count shows produced, artists served, and butts-in-seats but anyone who cares about the arts knows that the impact is intangible. There is no way to count how many tears were shed or thoughts changed because of a song or curated season. And yet, we know they were because when a show really hits, we feel it in our souls. 

As a theater administrator, enthusiast, and artist myself, I can assert that the intangible benefits that make us go back to darkened seats time and again are not by accident. Nor are they easy to generate. Being an artistic leader of an organization takes skill that is not taught anywhere. It takes years of experience, impeccable taste, conviction against public scrutiny, and a high tolerance for risk. The job is to repeatedly surprise, amuse, compel, provoke, and amaze, all while working within minuscule budgets, strict union rules, and ever-changing public opinion. 

I have no insider information about what happened between Arena Stage Artistic Director Hana Sharof and her Board, but I do know that the board/leadership relationship requires unwavering trust. That trust must also allow for room to fail. It takes collective buy-in to the artistic leader’s experience, foresight, and guts to put something up on stage that may or may not grab the collective public’s attention. 

That is not unique to the arts. 

Nonprofits are led by boards with varying levels of experience, interest, and involvement. Many individual trustees bring valuable expertise from their fields of work or study. Their job is to scrutinize and question. In addition to their fiduciary responsibility, they are tasked with hiring executive leadership and reviewing their performance with metrics they rarely collect themselves. Ultimately, their job is to trust the leaders they choose to do the work. The relationship simply can’t work without it. 

I too once walked away from a leadership position when I realized I didn’t have the faith of a board who were positive they knew how to do my job better than me, despite my direct experience and being there every day. It was a heartbreaking and demoralizing decision that I work hard to help many other organizations avoid through training, strategic planning, and retreat facilitation. I hope Ms. Sharof quickly finds peace with what I am sure was a horribly difficult choice and hope the Board can balance power, oversight, and trust with a new person moving forward.