LEADERSHIP MATTERS (American Association for State and Local History)

Today’s history and cultural heritage museum leaders are part visionary and part foot soldier, but what makes them tick? Are there attitudes, philosophies and skills that set some people apart from the thousands charged with moving institutions forward? What lessons can we draw from their stories? Now more than ever, success as a museum leader doesn’t necessarily come with longevity, scholarship or curatorial achievement. In fact, today’s successful leaders often bring myriad skills to the table, creating a style that works both personally and professionally. This snapshot of museum leadership focuses in particular 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 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
• Leadership “agenda” with criteria and goals for individual and organizational development

Using personal insights of the history museum field’s most engaging, innovative and entrepreneurial leaders, Leadership Matters profiles what makes inspiring leadership in 21st century institutions. These profiles focus not only on history museum presidents, directors, and CEOs, but also on the “leaders within”―deputies, vice-presidents and department heads, as well as their counterparts in the boardroom. Ackerson and Baldwin have brought together a resource to help individuals and institutions move from the status quo to being innovative and influential.

Anne W. Ackerson is the former director of the Museum Association of New York, and has served as director of several historic house museums and historical societies in central and eastern New York in a career spanning thirty-six years.

A former museum director, Joan H. Baldwin is the Curator of Special Collections at The Hotchkiss School, Lakeville, CT. A Between 2001 and 2012 she served as Program Assistant for the Museum Association of New York, responsible for writing, research, and program design for the statewide service agency.