By Prof. Dr. Julia Glesner
University of Applied Sciences Potsdam, Germany
/TEACHING EXPERIENCES
Cultural Organizations Collectively Led – Opportunities and Challenges
Introduction:
Collective leadership – or, depending on the definition, shared leadership – (Rybnikova & Lang, 2021) is being intensively tested in the cultural sector. From an academic point of view, the opportunities of this model are seen primarily in being able to meet the increased demands on the transformation of cultural organisations, e.g., sustainable development, diversity or digitisation (Schrauwen, Schramme & Segers, 2016). However, younger employees also see this as an opportunity to implement participation and flatter hierarchies to prevent the abuse of power (Mandel, 2018).
Many of the students in the BA programme Cultural Work at the University of Applied Sciences in Potsdam, Germany, reject the idea of working in organisations that are led by one person. The concept of hierarchy is clearly negatively loaded for them. Hierarchies are seen as gateways for the abuse of power. Already in the project work, a sequence of three courses in which they develop, implement, and evaluate their own project during their first two years, they demand a hierarchy-free and collective leadership structure in their project environment: All (major) decisions are to be taken on a grassroots basis – no matter how long that takes.
A seminar in the in-depth study phase, which the students could take from their third year of study, met this demand. At this point, they had already gained experience with grassroots decision-making in their own project work, had taken the introductory course on organisational theory, theatre management and some had already been in the practical semester.
On the State of Research
Business administration and sociology have dealt intensively with collective leadership constellations. Methodologically, the research is characterised by “a gratifying diversity” (Rybnikova & Lang, 2021: 173). What is striking is the variety of terms used for the shared leadership structures found in practice (for an overview see Bolden, 2011). Rybnikova & Lang (2001) see the lack of a common terminology as a lack of conceptual consistency: the authors have not drawn references to each other to a sufficient extent, they say. Also, the conceptual link between individual, group and organisation in the sometimes strongly normative terminology has not yet been convincingly achieved (Rybnikova & Lang, 2021: 172f.). Rybnikova & Lang have presented a classification scheme that distinguishes between the terms participative, shared, and collective leadership.
This terminology has three points in common: First, leadership tasks, e.g., planning and control, are shared, including responsibility for achieving goals. Secondly, power resources, too, are shared and thirdly, the group at least partially shares assumptions about leadership, the leadership process and results (Rybnikova & Lang, 2021: 154f.).
- In participative leadership, leaders involve employees in decision-making. Here, a distinction must be made between voluntarily granted and bindingly granted co-determination.
- In the case of shared leadership, leadership responsibility is divided within a group. Within the terminology of Rybnikova’s & Lang’s scheme, participative leadership could be combined with shared leadership: Collectively working leaders establish forms of co-determination with their staff.
- Collective leadership, on the other hand, is a special case of shared leadership that, for normative reasons, explicitly pursues the goal of democratising organisations and breaking down hierarchical structures.
Bolden (2011) emphasises that the introduction of collective leadership structures is not politically neutral:
“It is motivated by a series of expectations, assumptions and agendas which, while at face value may appear reasonable enough, may actually serve to legitimize and reinforce the domination of particular individuals and groups over others.” (Bolden, 2011: 260)
This finding is particularly central for examples in which management responsibility is distributed among several people and expectations on co-determination are implemented (Rybnikova & Lang, 2021: 155). It also applies to the case study on the Basel Theatre, which was the focus of the seminar. It is important to find out how the two parameters – shared leadership and co-determination – relate to each other: Does co-determination of the ensemble in a theatre necessarily require shared leadership? If not, what is the added value of this form of leadership? Bolden (2011) had already stated that “distribution per se is not necessarily related to more effective or efficient leadership” (Bolden, 2011: 256).
Only a few studies exist for the cultural sector. Schrauwen, Schramme & Segers (2016) tested the hypothesis that shared leadership is better placed to meet the increasing challenges of a rapidly-changing world. They examined “if and how leadership is shared with middle management and also with most other employees.” (Schrauwen, Schramme & Segers, 2016: 104)
In the following, collective leadership is understood as groups of at least three people who jointly take on at least the artistic management tasks, and sometimes also the financial-administrative management of a cultural organization. The focus of the seminar was on theatre companies. The reason for this is not only the conspicuous accumulation in practice in the German-speaking countries (e.g. Staatstheater Cottbus, Theater am Neumarkt Zürich, Theaterhaus Jena), but also research results (Bolden, 2011: 264). Bolden argues that there is a strong contextual dependency in the model of collective leadership: Work and production processes within the cultural sector are fundamentally different, for example between a museum and a theatre company.
Case Study Theater Basel
The seminar focused on the case study of Theater Basel. It is a three-division theatre company in Switzerland’s third-most-populous city. The cooperative (Genossenschaft) has around 840 members. It receives 95% of its public funding from the city of Basel and 5% from Basel Land, the region around the city of Basel, in total amounting to around 46 million euros. Theatre Basel has 388 full-time positions as planned. In fact, 429 people work there, 219 of them in the technical department and 171 in artistic production and administration. With 572 performances per year and an occupancy rate of 61% (around 148T visits), the theatre has a self-financing ratio of 20%.
The incumbent artistic directorship is trying out a double collective model: Collective bodies have been established both at the level of the theatre management and the management of the drama division, called Compagnie Basel. The drama division in turn is currently implementing participation formats within the ensemble.
They share values and attitudes and work with a specific self-conception:
“At the beginning of artistic creation in the Basel Compagnie is an everyday, cooperative practice. All members of the company shape and co-determine. At the heart of our collegial way of working is the principle of involving everyone in a decision who is affected by it and asking everyone who has an expertise on it.” (BC Blog, 2022)
They are working intensively on the question how to implement co-determination in-between the various professional groups of the company: First, there is no coercion for co-determination. Central to their collegial way of working is one principle: all those concerned and all those with specialist expertise are involved in the decision-making process, e.g., playbill, debriefings. They regularly hold company meetings and installed working groups for different topics, and allow artistic self-organisation, especially via ensemble representations such as ensemble spokespersons.
Didactic Model
Although the cohorts in the cultural work programme at the University of Applied Sciences in Potsdam, Germany, are relatively small with 30-35 students, they nevertheless bring different starting points with them. These different origins, competencies and values have to be taken into account in the choice of didactic means.
In 2021, the rate of first-year students in Germany was almost 56 percent. In 2022, the proportion of those who earned a university degree was 24.2 percent. This means that many people here continue to achieve a higher level of education than their parents. People with a migration background are particularly likely to achieve this. However, this development is declining because the educational level of the parents’ generation has risen (Anger & Geis-Thöne, 2023: 1; iwd, 2023). At the same time, there is discussion about the lack of study skills among first-year students. Criticism is levelled at their willingness to work on complex theoretical texts, their ability to analyse and abstract in depth, but also their ability to transfer; there is a lack of judgement, according to educationalist Volker Ladenthin (2018).
At the same time, the students often do not have enough practical experience to be able to assess what demands leaders in cultural organisations face. This complex starting position makes the requirements to the didactic concept of seminars even more demanding – and they increase again when, as with the topic of collective leadership in theatre companies, on the one hand, competences from basic courses such as organisational theory and theatre management have to be brought together with advanced leadership theories, and on the other hand, individual political attitudes and one’s own values have to be reflected upon as normative framework conditions.
Social Constructivist Teaching-Learning Approach
In this situation, the social constructivist teaching-learning approach seems to be the most suitable. It is based on two assumptions:
- First, learning is not based on the transmission of knowledge by an external authority, but on processes of self-organisation of the brain.
- And second: People‘s ability to interpret is never limited to an individual as a self-contained system, but happens embedded in social relations. A social constructivist conception of teaching-learning therefore pays special attention to the way power relations and norms influence the individual learning process. (Idaresit Akpan et al., 2020)
It is obvious: Such norms and power relations also influence the cooperation between professors and students at the university. Power relations: That directly concerns us as professors, as the ones who grade, promote, and perhaps prevents (whatever development might be concerned). And norms: The hopes, wishes, aspirations and – not to be forgotten – political attitudes of our students – and, of course, ourselves.
Bloom’s Taxonomy
The social constructivist teaching-learning approach can be combined with the revised version of Bloom’s taxonomy from 2001. It can be used both for the planning of a seminar, but also for the planning of individual teaching units.
Bloom’s Taxonomy is a framework for classifying educational objectives. It consists of six levels, from lower to higher cognitive skills. In his original version he used to distinguish six categories in the form of nouns: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. In 2001, an interdisciplinary team 2001 revised these nouns into verbs: remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating (Kratwohl, 2002). These levels help us design and assess learning activities, from basic recall of information to more advanced critical thinking and creativity.
The Seminar Concept
Teaching-Learning-Objectives
The seminar Cultural Organisations Collectively Led pursued the following learning-teaching objectives, among others:
- The students were supposed, firstly, to understand collective leadership as a complex design task from cultural practice,
- and, secondly, to analyse Theater Basel and its Basler Compagnie as a case study with corresponding theoretical frameworks,
- and, thirdly, to critically evaluate concepts of collective leadership and co-determination, and how they are (or are not) connected, in practice.
During the seminar, I wanted them to choose their own case study and apply what they have learned to it – both in comparison to the case study and the theory we read. Finally, I hoped to support them by developing a differentiated understanding of the term collective in the context of leadership.
Structure of the Seminar
In the planning of the seminar, I differentiated between six phases on the horizontal line and chose the one and most important function of this phase, beginning with activation, analysis, theory over research-based learning to consolidation and application. I, finally, tried to combine that with Bloom’s revised taxonomy:
Structure of Seminar (own elaboration)
I, then, concluded that – if I really wanted to achieve what was in the social-constructivist approach – (that people’s ability to interpret is never limited to an individual as a self-contained system, but happens embedded in social relations) the only option to achieve this was via saving free an unstructured time for free discussion. I wanted to stimulate these discussions with specifically chosen methods.
Headstand Method
The first method was the headstand method. This technique goes by various names, such as inversion technique, flip-flop technique or provocation technique (de Bono, 1995). It basically means asking the opposite question of what you want to be answered. It involves looking at a problem from a different perspective, much like turning things upside down, to uncover new insights and patterns. In my experience, it helps to start this method with some minutes of silence where the knots in the minds can untangle. Students need to do this exercise seriously; otherwise self-evident and useless results will be produced.
Thinking Hats Method
“Thinking is the ultimate human resource.”
Edward de Bono
As second method I used Edward de Bono’s thinking hats methods (de Bono, 1990). This method is used to amplify creative conversations by making sure that a broad variety of viewpoints and thinking styles are represented. It involves the use of different metaphorical ‘thinking hats’, each representing a specific perspective or mode of thinking. The thinking hat method offers a structured framework for considering different aspects of a topic, from objective data (white hat) to emotions and intuition (red hat), critical analysis (black hat), optimism (yellow hat), creativity (green hat) and, finally, overall process management (blue). This approach enhances comprehensive and well-rounded thinking in academic and problem-solving contexts.
The Muddiest Point Method
“When nobody has any questions and the room becomes still,
I assume that no one is following.”Frederick Mosteller
And, finally, I need – a good many times – the Muddiest Point Method, a classroom assessment technique developed by Frederick Mosteller (1989). It is a monitoring technique that allows teachers to gain insights into students’ misconceptions. You give them enough time – in silence, each to her or his own – to think about questions like: What are you most confused about? What is muddy for you? Sometimes – please be prepared – you will not like the results as they mirror your work. But what else does help?
Questions for further discussions:
Complex learning settings allow us to watch students supporting each other while achieving the competency to undergo a learning process by themselves. In accordance with the assumptions of the social constructivist teaching-learning approach, we thus provide them with appropriate conditions to reflect on their values and the power relations in which they themselves operate, but which can also be found in the examples from practice. On the basis of such learning settings, we will continue to be able to ensure that students learn to use “the ultimate human resource” (de Bono) – to think – without the support of AI tools.
References:
BC Blog (2022) Was ist die Basler Compagnie? https://www.theater-basel.ch/de/bcblog/wasistdiebaslercompagnie
Christina, A. / Geis-Thöne, W. (2023) Starke, aber rückläufige Aufwärtsmobilität bei der Bildung (Strong but declining upward mobility in education). IW-Kurzbericht 45. https://www.iwkoeln.de/studien/christina-anger-wido-geis-thoene-starke-aber-ruecklaeufige-aufwaertsmobilitaet-bei-der-bildung.html
de Bono, E. (1990) Six Thinking Hats. London: Penguin Books.
de Bono, E. (1995). Serious Creativity: Using the Power of Lateral Thinking to Create New Ideas. New York: Harper Collins.
Idaresit Akpan, V.; Udodirim Angela Igwe; Ikechukwu Blessing Ijeoma Mpamah and Charity Onyinyechi Okoro (2020) Social Constructivism: Implications on Teaching and Learning. British Journal of Education, 8(8), 49-56. https://www.eajournals.org/wp-content/uploads/Social-Constructivism.pdf
Informationsdienst des Instituts der Wirtschaft (iwd) (2023)
Noch geht der Trend zum Akademiker (The trend is still towards academics). https://www.iwd.de/artikel/der-trend-geht-zum-akademiker-334262/#:~:text=So%20betrug%20die%20Studienanfängerquote%20im,Bildungsabschluss%20erreichen%20als%20ihre%20Eltern.
Krathwohl, D. (2002) A revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy: An overview. Theory into Practice, 4 (Autumn).
Ladenthin, V. (2018) Da läuft etwas ganz schief. Erfüllt das Gymnasium nicht mehr seine wesentliche Aufgabe: Junge Menschen studierfähig zu machen? Eine Kritik aus erziehungswissenschaftlicher Sicht (Something is going very wrong. Is the Gymnasium no longer fulfilling its essential task: to make young people fit for university? A critique from the perspective of educational science). Forschung & Lehre 8/18. https://www.forschung-und-lehre.de/lehre/da-laeuft-etwas-ganz-schief-894
Mosteller, F. (1989) The ‘Muddiest Point in the Lecture’ as a Feedback Device. On Teaching and Learning: The Journal of the Harvard-Danforth Center, 3, 10–21.
Rybnikova, I.; Lang, R. (2021) Partizipative und geteilte Führung: Alle machen mit? In Rybnikova, I.; Lang, R. (eds.) Aktuelle Führungstheorien und -konzepte (pp.151-177). Wiesbaden: Springer Gabler.
Biography:
Julia Glesner is Professor of Cultural Management at Potsdam University of Applied Sciences. Her main research interests are theatre management, cultural policy, cultural governance. She formerly held management positions at the Klassik Stiftung Weimar (2006-2018) and at the Erfurt Opera (2003-2006). She recently published “Opera for all. The Biography of Sir Peter Jonas”, the former state director of the Bavarian State Opera Munich, at Suhrkamp/Insel.
