The phenomenal growth rate of the UK's creative sector belies its weakness in leadership skills and awareness. The recently launched Cultural Leadership Programme is set to change this by helping to develop mid-career executives into leaders for the future

The promise of an impressive sporting infrastructure was one of the main factors that won London the bid for the 2012 Olympics. But it wasn't the only one. Another key influence was its pledge to deliver a strong cultural programme.

The UK is home to one of the most thriving creative sectors in the world, with creative and cultural organisations accounting for more than seven per cent of the economy. They employ almost two million people, while the sector itself is growing at five per cent a year—faster than the economy as a whole. It is also exceptionally diverse, stretching from local libraries to internationally famous galleries.

But over the last few years the success of this part of the UK economy has highlighted the lack of attention it has given to leadership issues. This is hardly surprising, given that the sector has one of the highest proportions of small companies, sole traders and freelancers of all the UK industrial sectors. Just under 90 per cent of businesses employ nine people or less.

In the subsidised sector, larger institutions such as national museums and galleries are addressing the issue of leadership. But concern for this issue is not as widespread as it should be.

The Cultural Leadership Programme (CLP) was launched in June 2007 to promote excellence of leadership and management in the cultural sector. This £12m, two-year Treasury-funded initiative is being overseen by the Arts Council England, the Creative and Cultural Skills Council and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and has the personal backing of Gordon Brown.

Hilary Carty, director of the programme, claims that while the creative sector is now recognised as one to be reckoned with economically, it must start introducing formal mechanisms for dealing with leadership: "The CLP is looking to put in place more formal ways of gaining leadership knowledge and experience within these industries."

The programme has six strands, encompassing work-based opportunities, intensive leadership courses, entrepreneurship, governance issues, diversity, and information provision. It cuts right across the sector, from the arts in the widest sense through to design, advertising and crafts, and includes both subsidised and commercial organisations.

The mentoring scheme Peach Placements is already up and running. The goal is to have about 30 placements during the course of the programme. So far there are four in place, with six on the cards. Further advertising to attract more applicants will be run in December and February 2008.

Current participants on the hosting side include the National Portrait Gallery, the Akram Khan Dance Company, and the Manchester International Festival. "The placements are really a way of creating opportunities for emerging and mid-career leaders to gain experience," says Carty. "They are people who have been involved in leadership in some way already, and want to build on that. We pair them with some of the industry's most established leaders to get on-the-job learning—a really critical part of leadership development."

Michael Lynch, chief executive of South Bank Centre, who sits on the CLP board agrees. "It's important to try to impart the sense of what a leader is, how leadership works, the connection between understanding where governance and management sit, and what are the best practice models," he says. "Progressively moving through jobs has been the greatest teacher to me, and I want to find a way to be able to give some of that back. This was a good opportunity to do that."

The mid-career leaders are also given a specific project to carry out before the end of their placement. Diana Spiegelberg is associate director of development and learning at Serious, a 15-person international music producer that among other things puts on the London Jazz Festival. She began a "Peach Placement" with theNational Portrait Gallery in June.

As she approaches the end of her six-month stint, she's acquired a valuable, practical understanding of how a much larger organisation works, how different departments relate to one another and how responsibilities are allocated. She is also getting first-hand experience of different leadership styles, as well as how to manage boards of trustees.

"When I started at Serious we were just nine people. Now we're 14, which may not sound like a big shift, but it's the difference between being able to communicate when sitting in the same room and actually having to put certain procedures in place," she says. "In a much bigger place like the gallery it shows how the need for communication is even more important because staff can be so dispersed."

But the host also benefits, according to National Portrait Gallery director Sandy Nairne: "First, there was an opportunity to get someone very bright to come and help us for a period of time, which one doesn't get easily. That's the practical reason." But he also supports any scheme that helps increase the leadership skills of someone at the mid-career stage.

Nairne believes that overall leadership has greatly improved in big cultural organisations like his. "Even 10 years ago this sector wasn't very good at thinking about leadership at any level-team leadership and project leadership as well as leadership at the top. But now we have started to focus on this."

Communications and people management are central. "It would be ludicrous if, in cultural organisations, we weren't good at managing people. How one communicates, how one gets the processes to work well between people and with people, and with respect to integrity, is absolutely number one. Everything follows from that."

Nairne is aware of the potential for resentment among existing gallery staff. "You have to make sure it's the right project at the right time and manage it by knowing what the expectations of your own staff are," he says.

There is also a huge investment in terms of the host organisation's' time. "The mentors need to be prepared to give of their time," says Carty. "Otherwise, the organisation doesn't get a proper return on investment. I know we are asking a lot of leaders, but if you look at this as growing the next generation of leaders, there is tremendous goodwill in the creative and cultural industries to help pass on skills and knowledge."

There is great determination to train people based on actual experience, adds Carty. "We want to develop the best rounded leaders who can work in differing circumstances—a generation of leaders who can take out the right piece of the leadership tool kit for the job at hand," she says.

A peach of a job

Gazing across Trafalgar Square from the National Portrait Gallery's roof-top restaurant, Diana Spiegelberg reflects on what she's learnt from shadowing the senior management team of one of the world's great galleries.

As part of her placement, she sits in on all the management and curatorial team meetings. "Hearing the gallery's director, Sandy Nairne, talk about the organisation in a variety of different contexts and settings has been fantastic," she says. "My first day was the annual management team away-day, which was a great shortcut to getting insights into the priorities."

Spiegelberg has also been tasked with putting together the Gallery's contribution to the 2012 Cultural Olympiad. "The gallery is all about people who have achieved something in their lives, so that's a starting point in terms of thinking how you inspire people about the Olympics." Her days at the NPG, then, combine sitting in on the management meetings and developing ideas. "This is great because it gives me a reason to talk to people everywhere across the organisation."

The Peach Placement mentoring scheme has given Spiegelberg a unique opportunity to experience and learn from the culture of another organisation. She has worked at music producers Serious since leaving university and sees herself as an integral part of the company. "Having been at Serious for seven-and-a-half years, it's difficult to get a fresh perspective on management, so this is wonderful," she says.

Initially Spiegelberg had deep concerns about the potential impact on Serious, a small company, if she were away for six months. But these were alleviated when she was invited to split her week between the NPG and Serious, with a job share on her three-days-a-week placement.

One lesson she has already learnt about leadership in the cultural sector is that it has to be consultative: "In the cultural sector, in particular, we are all trying to inspire and engage the public on many levels. So the people working within an organisation need to feel passionate about what they are doing and empowered. Everything else follows from that."

The CLP

What is it? Two year, Treasury funded initiative set up in June 2007 with £12m funding and the personal endorsement of Prime Minister Brown.
Aims To nurture the next generation of leaders within the cultural sector, through mid-career job placements
Who's in charge? Hilary Carty, director of the programme, who wants to see leadership development and knowledge-sharing formalised within the sector.