Complaints about institutional policies proliferate, while nuance around the debates disintegrates. Leading is messy and decisions are never black and white, but the responses to those decisions often present opinions polarized.

As this article in Jacobin Magazine details, a broad series of crises threaten the way that cultural institutions have operated. Put in the position of director, how do you manage the incessant harassment of your front-of-house workers that may even lead to their physical assault for example? Simply paying them more does not change patron behavior.

How do you navigate the fault line between employee discontent and leadership that leads to a unionization earthquake? How much should security guards get paid? Raising salaries involves more money. Where does that come from?

To get more money, most museums attempt to cultivate more or bigger donors, but how do you manage the potential for “art washing”? What makes a “good” or “acceptable” donor? These criteria are as subjective as the art on the museum walls. By actively excluding many potential donors due to their business practices, your pool of patrons shrinks (or, some would say, disappears) and the job of raising money becomes exponentially more difficult.

What if we cut the salaries of those at the top? Good idea, but in a capitalist system, high-profile and desirable administrators and curators will move to other institutions that pay better unless you just get lucky. They get recruited, and because of the competition for their skills, bidding wars can ensue.

Where should the money come from? Will money solve the problem? What is the role of public pressure? Are unions and public pressure a sufficient counterweight to the gravity of the situation?

I do not mention all of this to to take the side of museum directors, I simply seek to raise the point that “good” or “appropriate” responses proliferate as much as “bad” or “inappropriate” ones but often do not receive accolades and get debated publicly such that they do not appear like good decisions. Likewise, unpopular decisions often get ridiculed as “wrong” but can later play out as the right decision over time. How often, though, do we revisit these decisions years later? I would love, for example, to revisit the various decisions museums made to deaccession parts of their collections during this on-going pandemic to see who regrets their sales and who truly benefited. And, to get Buddhist on you, if a bad decision forces you to change and results in a better situation, was the decision really bad?

If I were a journalist, I would love to research those who run institutions well. I might start with those who have spent a long time in one institution. How do/did they manage to survive so long? What crises did they face and how did they manage them? Did their employees respect them? This would take an enormous amount of time to pursue, so I will not endeavor to do it. Still, I would love to see, if just on an issue-by-issue basis, discussion of how leaders manage specific issues.

There are also bad leaders. Those without vision or the ability to communicate and create a shared vision for their department or institution. Those who make decisions reprehensible enough that require merit the removal from their post. Loyalty must be earned through actions, and actions are the best speech writers. Those qualities underpin this Nelson Mandela quote.

The reality, though, is that even determining a “good” from a “bad” leader is not always easy because sometimes they get it wrong. Part of leadership is charting a course but the other part involves getting your crew to stay adhere to the mission even when a storm blows you off the original route. If you sit on the board and need to determine the fate of your director, you might consider the culmination of difficult decisions, the result of a few critical decisions, the overall health of the finances, and the respect of the employees.

Unfortunately, discussion of this topic involves the necessary use of subjective language. Thus, we will always end up here in a cul-de-sac of debate and we must simply embrace it as a way to produce stronger leaders and better results. Still, when I look at all of the issues museum directors specifically must face, I appreciate that I do not have to face them myself. I think that criticizing their decisions is valid and absolutely necessary but also think that criticism should involve a level of nuance and context that demonstrates a thorough knowledge of these situations.