What is management? What is leadership?

Jack Rubin explores the difference between the management of resources and people, and leadership that seizes opportunities to create positive change.  

Change is the only constant. The question we must all ask is: what strategic challenges do we have because of what is changing around us? How are we responding to these major changes? And how do we embrace the future in order to make the most of it? 

Leadership opportunities are a time when organizations change, thrive, and survive.

Drawing on his experience in business, Jack discusses the importance of sink-or-swim moments. And from seeing firsthand some of the most forward-thinking leaders across the world of arts and culture, he's confirmed that there is no magic potion, no special formula. Every organization, every set of circumstances is unique. Every challenge can be viewed from multiple perspectives.

But there is one common factor: the big opportunity. That is, every organization has the ability to identify ‘the big opportunity’ that could take them from average to outperforming; could transform a service or a product offering from mundane to enticing; could start them on the road to success from a sliding slope of programming decline, to a period of fiscal and artistic success.

Jack highlights three examples of leadership from the Tessitura community, showing us how leaders of arts organizations around the world have made the most of the big opportunities before them.

Jack delivered this talk to more than 1,800 attendees from over 300 arts and cultural organizations at the 2018 Tessitura Learning and Community Conference in Orlando in July 2018.