traits of a true artist

Five Traits to Power Up your Artistic Leadership Skills

Leadership written in a notebook

Diego Rivera was a leader of the Mexican Mural Movement and painted large murals condemning the ruling class whom he saw as oppressors of his people.

Alvin Ailey led a movement that opened the world of dance to Blacks, pioneered programs in low-income communities, and revolutionized modern dance while staying true to his values and sharing his culture.

Jane Fonda has used her talents and influence as an actor to promote social and environmental change, including activism for Native American rights and Black Lives Matter.

Despite the tendency of artists to impact change, lead revolutions and empower the people in our communities and around the world, artists tend to shy away from the title of "leader." However, many programs of the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts challenge artists to reconsider this resistance and recognize how the creative process has helped them develop attributes of leadership, such as vision, empathy, authenticity, persistence, patience and the ability to listen deeply and empower others.

According to Rob Kramer, leadership coach and co-creator of the Kenan Institute's Podcast "Artist as Leader," these are five important commonalities among artists who are leaning in on the leadership role and are effectively leading change efforts. Whether you are born with these abilities or develop them, cultivating these traits will help you step into an artist leader role.

Trait #1 – They develop ruthless
self-honesty

Knowing yourself is one of the most critical aspects of effective leadership. To lead you must be able to evaluate what you are doing and determine what is working and what isn't.

Some people who are in leadership roles think that they have to be flawless, that they can't make mistakes because it diminishes their leadership capacity. In truth, recognizing your flaws, reflectively analyzing your mistakes and taking ownership and making changes demonstrates strength and enhances your leadership abilities.

Ways to nurture that trait:

Be still – Take time to sit in silence each day and reflect on the events of the day. Examine the things that went well and those that were less than perfect. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable when thinking about the mistakes you have made. Determine what you can do differently.

Ask – Determine ways to garner feedback from your team. Sometimes it is scary asking others what they saw as effective and ineffective, but it will: 1) build trust with your team when they know they can be open and honest with you; 2) inspire a truly collaborative culture; and 3) earn respect and admiration that you can handle feedback and come back better than before.

Adapt – Heed the advice and feedback from your team and utilize the self-reflection to come up with a plan of action. Try new approaches to solve the problems or issues that are arising.

Trait #2 – They embrace failure

As you embark in uncharted territory with your organization, your team, your mission, you will fail. Understand that it is part of the process. While it may be painful, failure is the best tool for learning and can actually propel you to great success.

When failure occurs:

Acknowledge the failure
Analyze why it occurred
Determine how to correct it or how to move on from it
ACT - Take steps forward through the failure to improvement so it won't happen again.

Trait #3 – They collaborate, connect and trust others

These three traits are key to working well with a team. You have to be able to bring out the strengths and potential of those on your team and foster a culture where you all feel able to utilize your strengths and work together to get things done!

Collaborate: For you and your team to truly collaborate, you must connect, and you must have trust. Collaboration can only occur when the members of a group feel safe enough to share their insights and ideas. Research has shown these keys to foster collaboration with your team:

Build relationships so that members of the team can work together towards a common purpose.
Frame the goals, purpose and mission of the organization clearly and determine obstacles then work to overcome them
Activate the team to do good work towards the common goals

Connect: Emotional intelligence is an important component for making a connection to your team. This includes the ability to empathize and to be aware of emotions within yourself and within others. Using that emotional intelligence increases your ability to understand how to communicate with different members of your team and how to collaborate in new and unique ways that bring out the strengths of those on your team.

Trust Others: According to Forbes, "Trust is the belief or confidence that one party has in the reliability, integrity and honesty of another party. It is the expectation that the faith one places in someone else will be honored." If there isn't trust between you and those on your team, you are doomed to failure. First, you have to make sure the people you bring into your team are ones that you believe have what it takes to help you accomplish the mission. Secondly, they have to feel that you trust them. Allowing them to tackle tasks, share opinions openly and even to fail safely, allows them to grow, to trust, and to become loyal members of your team.

Trait #4 – They cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset

UNCSA defines an Artpreneur as "an artist who is not defined by what is, but inspired by all that could be; who is business savvy and technologically aware; who is devoted to creating value and impact through their creative practice; who reaches beyond existing disciplines to create new ways to connect with others; who is willing to take creative risks in order to positively transform our world." For some people it is innate, for others it is more difficult. In order to foster that spirit of continual evolution, a leader will try to bring out these traits in their team by:

Being a role model and continually emulating the creative and adaptive thinking they are looking for in their team
Encouraging new innovations and ideas
Giving their team members ownership of their own task, goal, etc.
Constantly asking the team to identify the desired end result and ask how to get there
Being adaptive and flexible which demonstrating their own growth mindset

Trait #5 – They apply creative skills to overcome challenges and lead change

We touched on ways you can do this in some of the tips above; for example, being adaptive and flexible will help you to overcome challenges and lead change movements. Being a leader also means asking:

Should we be doing this task at all?
Is this the best way to do this task?
What could be improved to eliminate this task, or make this task more effective or more efficient?

No one would ever say that being a leader is easy. However, it is important to know that being a great leader does not mean you have to be perfect! You just have to utilize the talents and skills you already have as a creative person in conjunction with your team's valuable strengths and assets, iterate often and don't be afraid to fail!

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Speaking of iteration, if you're interested in honing your artistic leadership skills, take a moment to check out our Creative Catalyst Certificate program. It's affordable, and the first course focuses on Artistic Leadership Skills.

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