Developing Equity Leadership Teams

Consider times when you've experienced traditional hierarchical forms of leadership. What worked and what didn't work with that approach?

I have been subject to many cases of traditional hierarchical forms of leadership but the experience that sticks out in my mind was when I took a lab on creating a musical production. As my two teachables are Music and Dramatic Arts, I thought it would be very applicable to my work. The goal of the lab was to use the creative process to come up with an original, one-act musical show in twelve weeks. We were placed in groups of four and each had a role: the director, the actor, the composer, and the set designer. Like all forms of group work, the people that you are working with come from different backgrounds and bring something unique to the table. It is not uncommon for personalities to clash with one another.

Many performance based ensembles assign a director to lead the instruction and develop a vision so that the other directors and ensemble can follow. My professor stressed that the director was to play the biggest role in developing this one-act show and to direct all our questions to them, not the professor. The director in my group was absent for many of the sessions. By week ten, the script had still not been finalized. This created a domino effect. I had been appointed the composer and faced many challenges trying to write music for a scene that did not exist. The actor was not able to learn their lines because the script was constantly changing. The set designer could not visualize the staging without knowing the setting of the scene. The last two weeks of the course were a scramble to put the show together in time for a public staging. The ensemble felt unsupported throughout the creative process and we were hesitant to showcase the final product. Being vulnerable with your art and having to put it on display when you are not fully satisfied with it, is not a good feeling for any artist to sit with.

As uncomfortable as the experience was, I took a few lessons from it. I realized that there are benefits to allowing the ensemble to come together and help create the show, though it depends on the individuals in your group. I also understood the motivation behind my professor’s decision to assign a director to lead. “Almost all new leaders revert to this model when they are in charge. New leaders often do this because they learn from their predecessors, mentors, and the leadership models around them; operating this way is a part of their deep individual and systems paradigms” (Radd et al., 2021, p. 119). There are some productions that could benefit from a strong director who takes the lead, as the ensemble may be happy to follow. There are other productions where the ensemble may have their own ideas that the director could take into consideration. The traditional hierarchical form of leadership strategy appeared to work well for the other groups in my class but did not in my case.

As I begin to navigate my professional teaching career, I see similarities between this musical theatre experience and educators. I am one of the teachers that belong to the Arts department at my school (the ensemble), and we have a department head (the director), who is our go-to person for anything before asking our administrators (the professor, in my example). “To be effective as an equity-focused leader, you need to be intentional and persistent about seeking out and engaging with people who bring perspectives and paradigms that differ from yours” (Radd et al., 2021, p. 119). Through collaboration, sharing leadership power, communication, and taking responsibility for our individual duties, we hope to create an insightful and equitable learning experience for our students.

References

Radd, S. I., Generett, G. G., Gooden, M. A., & Theoharis, G. (2021). Five practices for equity-focused school leadership. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development.

Exhibition Loop, Toronto, September 2022