Leadership in the arts is rarely tidy. The work is personal, and the margin for error is thin. Timing matters more than we like to admit. You can do everything right and still miss the moment. Anyone who’s been in this field long enough knows that pressure. This goes for managers and musicians alike.
Because of that, how we treat each other matters. Maybe more than anything else. Especially now, when political forces are actively working to temper and restrict the arts.
In college violin studio classes (where we performed pieces we were working on), my teacher had her students give three positive comments before offering any criticism. Her goal was simple: no one should tear down a colleague. What actually happened was more interesting. We started actively looking for what was working. It rewired how we paid attention. Instead of scanning for flaws, we noticed each other’s strength, intention, and risk. I come back to that idea often. I recently ran into a variation in the book The One Minute Manager: “catch people doing something right.”
In a field built on critique, ranking, and rejection, noticing what’s right doesn’t come naturally. We are trained to hear what missed, what could be better, and what didn’t land. But when someone feels seen for what they are doing well, something shifts. Trust grows and relationships solidify. People stop bracing and defending and start listening and supporting. That doesn’t lower standards. It strengthens the work and ultimately the art.
Leadership in the arts is not about titles. We are all arts leaders. Every rehearsal, audition, program note, branding choice, and hallway conversation shapes the culture. How we respond to someone else’s success matters far more than any mission statement ever could.
Too many of our systems reward compliance over curiosity. Execution over collaboration. Preservation over risk. That mindset, usually started in college, follows musicians and managers into professional life, showing up as insecurity, defensiveness, and the impulse to diminish others.
This is where smallness creeps in: ego, pettiness, cattiness, gossip. It can feel harmless, even bonding. Our minds are wired to connect over critique. But that kind of connection drains energy from the art. It shrinks the community and fosters insecurity.
Supporting each other is supporting the art. Pulling people down doesn’t protect standards, it protects fear.
If something truly needs to be said, say it. But try this first: before critiquing, venting, or gossiping, name three good things. Three real attributes about the work, the effort, the integrity, the courage it took to show up. Starting there keeps critique in service of the art, not the ego.
Support in the arts isn’t softness. It’s discipline. It’s paying attention to who is leading with integrity, who is taking artistic risks, who is asking better questions instead of safer ones. It’s resisting the urge to push someone down to protect your own place.
The arts don’t survive because one person gets it right. They survive because people notice each other, choose support over scarcity and insecurity, and allow leadership to rise when they see it instead of feeling threatened by it.
That choice is what true arts leadership looks like.
