Vision and Vulnerability: Thoughts on Leadership and Conservation

Abstract

ABSTRACT Testimony from colleagues in the cultural sector suggests that there is a common perception of leaders as authoritarian, infallible and invulnerable. However, developing leaders soon come to understand that good leaders often have an authenticity of their own. Being able to embrace authentic leadership in this way requires confidence. It involves accepting vulnerabilities, learning to be comfortable making decisions without all the information, and daring to risk potential failure as the best way to encourage creativity, innovation and learning. Given this dichotomy, is there a potential for the development of leadership in conservation? This paper explores the unique challenges we face as conservators in a changing sector. In it, I reconnect with professional experiences of my own and those I gained as the first conservation fellow on the Clore Leadership Programme as well as examining testimony from others in the profession and the wider cultural sector. The ideas generated are supported by literature from a variety of sources inside and outside the conservation field. Starting from what draws people to conservation in the very beginning and working through to the leadership of the profession, the paper identifies four main areas of challenge for conservation in a twenty-first-century creative economy. These are around a lack of diversity, a lack of confidence, the strength of voice and perception and issues around support, for our decision-making and for the profession as a whole. The paper concludes that a new vision for the future of conservation could not only help rebalance the diverging preventive and remedial specialisms but also be instrumental in the perception, interpretation and preservation of cultural heritage. If we expand our horizons, the bigger picture of heritage and what it can achieve for the society could be crucial to us not only changing but thriving in the modern world.