In Leading Museums Today: Theory and Practice, readers learn about leadership theory in both for profit and nonprofit worlds and how to effectively master the role of both leader and follower. Literature from business and non-profit management as well as the insights of current thought leaders provide lessons for the reader. The book explores the reality of change in the workplace, the standards and best practices of businesses and museums, and innovative approaches to creating a nimble and responsive organization. Topics covered include: Organizational structure, team-based work, and new business models are detailed. Working as a leader at the middle of the organization and ways to be successful in leading up are described. Leadership training and how individuals can be continual learners. Case studies and profiles cover the work of university museums, children’s museums, historic sites, history, art, and multi-disciplinary museums. Each of the case studies provides personal perspectives of leadership qualities, career progression, and highlights of the transformative work at their museum.

First published in 2013, this revision of Leadership Matters features nine new profiles and a new chapter of emerging museum leader voices, proving that leadership is as much about individuals as institutions. Using personal insights from the history museum field’s most engaging, innovative and entrepreneurial leaders, these profiles focus not only on museum directors and CEOs, but also on the “leaders within”—deputies, department heads and team leaders -- and those demanding change from the community. Baldwin and Ackerson weave together the voices of 21st-century museum leadership at its best, creating a resource for graduate students, mid-career professionals, institutions, and boards of trustees to move from the status quo to being agile and influential, fostering leadership that will make a difference. Too many museums and heritage organizations still consider leadership development a ‘nice-to-have’, but not a necessary component for a successful executive director or department head. The field struggles to address a new round of cultural warfare fueled by widespread societal division and the overwhelming lack of diversity and equity in museum leadership at all levels, including boards of trustees. Additionally, the field continues to ignore the gender pay gap despite a workforce hovering at 50-percent female and with the potential to grow significantly over the next decade. More than ever, successful museum leadership isn’t the result of longevity, scholarship or curatorial achievement. In fact, today’s successful museum leaders bring myriad skills to the table, creating a style that works both personally and professionally. This snapshot of museum leadership focuses on history and cultural heritage organizations to help readers understand the power of individual leadership and its relationship to organizational strength. This book features: • 36 interviews – nine of them brand new to this edition -- with leaders in the field from a range of positions and institutions • 10 myths of museum leadership and why they’re wrong • 10 simple truths of museum leadership • A leadership “agenda” with criteria and goals for individual and organizational development

What does it take to lead the 21st-century museum? Balancing a head for business and working from the heart guided by passion! This is the message Sherene Suchy discovered in her work with more than 80 international museum directors whose thoughts and experiences ground this book on change management in 21st-century cultural organizations.

During the economic boom of the 1990s, art museums expanded dramatically in size, scope, and ambition. They came to be seen as new civic centers: on the one hand as places of entertainment, leisure, and commerce, on the other as socially therapeutic institutions. But museums were also criticized for everything from elitism to looting or illegally exporting works from other countries, to exhibiting works offensive to the public taste. Whose Muse? brings together five directors of leading American and British art museums who together offer a forward-looking alternative to such prevailing views. While their approaches differ, certain themes recur: As museums have become increasingly complex and costly to manage, and as government support has waned, the temptation is great to follow policies driven not by a mission but by the market. However, the directors concur that public trust can be upheld only if museums continue to see their core mission as building collections that reflect a nation's artistic legacy and providing informed and unfettered access to them. The book, based on a lecture series of the same title held in 2000-2001 by the Harvard Program for Art Museum Directors, also includes an introduction by Cuno and a fascinating--and surprisingly frank--roundtable discussion among the participating directors. A rare collection of sustained reflections by prominent museum directors on the current state of affairs in their profession, this book is without equal. It will be read widely not only by museum professionals, trustees, critics, and scholars, but also by the art-loving public itself.

Museums of contemporary art are expanding and in crisis. They attract ever-larger audiences, architects constantly redesign them, and the growing number of artists is producing more massively than ever; at the same time museum funds are dwindling in the economic crisis and an overheated art market. This text gathers together interviews with international artists, architects and curators of the contemporary art world.

A tour of America's most notable museums is also a history of the nation's art that highlights each location's top works while discussing the backgrounds of each building and featured piece of art.

The Role of Today’s Museum provides a thorough investigation of what museums do and why. Arguing that museums are multifunctional institutions, the book examines the consequences of this for the services that museums provide, the publics to whom they are provided and the providers themselves. Adopting a wide perspective on understandings of the roles of museums and considering the different environments within which museums operate, Gray and McCall provide a new perspective on how transformations, as well as the gaps between intended policies and the actual work that is undertaken within museums, can be both identified and understood. By differentiating between social, economic and political visions and expectations of museums, the analysis in this book allows for a fuller understanding of what these organisations do and provide for their societies and the struggles and negotiations that surround their existence. The Role of Today’s Museum takes a critical, interdisciplinary approach to studying museums and museum policy. As a result, the book will be of interest to academics and students engaged in the study of museums, cultural policy, social policy, cultural sociology, public policy and cultural and political economy. Highlighting the gaps that exist between policy ideals and museum practices, the book also provides valuable insights to policy-makers and practitioners.