Sync

Are you – a leader or a manager? And do you know the difference? The Oxford English Dictionary defines them as:

Manager: A person controlling or administering a business

Leader: A person who causes others to go with him, by guiding and showing the way; guides by persuasion and argument

Mark Wright, our Sync leadership expert, reckons we tend to see leadership as aspirational and management as a bit mundane but the reality is that both managers and leaders ‘desperately need to find the balance of vision and drive, process and plan in order for their respective flowers to bloom.’

So what are you?

So what are you? a leader, a manager or a follower? Or are you able to become each of those?

Mark goes on to say that:

The most effective people in any organisation are those who are happy and able to do all three – they lead when they need to, manage the outcomes effectively and have the humility to know when following really well is what is needed.

Some of you certainly agree. Sync 100 member Anonymous three feels:

Good leadership is best achieved when leaders and followers are enablers of each other with a good sense of trust and of interdependence.

Following the leader

So we need leaders and managers but even that’s not enough. Leaders are nothing without people to lead and managers similarly need people to manage. So we also have followers (defined simply as ‘a person who follows’ or ‘a supporter, fan, or disciple’)

As Mark says:

Followership is a positive activity, with a skill set all of its own – without great followership, a leader is left exposed and a manager gets begrudging compliance.

And where do you do it?

Well, it seems that there are barriers to taking these roles into mainstream. Jenny Sealey, Artistic Director of Graeae Theatre Company poses the question:

Can we be leaders based on our artistic merit, passion, sensitivity and understanding for diverse platforms and be seen as leaders across the arts spectrum rather than segregated to lead only in our own cultural spheres?

This is echoed by Stephanie Fuller:

Having an impairment seems to locate you within a particular part of the cultural sector (access, diversity, disability arts), which it is hard to move beyond.

For me its like swimming – do I stay in the warm, protected ‘disability’ pool or risk swimming out in the bigger, wilder sea?

What about you - where do you swim, and why? Liz Crow also brings up a really important issue:

‘How far do I compromise myself and my needs to make headway in [a] sector? And how much do I have to be responsible for the impact this might have on the next disabled person who comes along?’

Over to you...

Are you working, or wanting to work in the mainstream creative and cultural fields or are you in a disability-specific field – why have you made your choice? Have you had to compromise yourself to be where you are?

Jo Verrent (Sync Project Manager)