The crisis of cultural leadership in Britain

This article describes the circumstances surrounding the creation of a new training scheme for cultural leaders in the United Kingdom: the Clore Leadership Programme. The programme is a response to the contemporary crisis in cultural leadership in the United Kingdom, which is explained in terms of low morale produced by government underfunding, low pay, loss of status, ill‐defined career paths and over‐regulation. The ensuing crisis of cultural authority is compounded by reluctance to address issues of leadership training, which is poorly provided for in Britain. A typology of leadership is proposed: transactional, transformational and relational. The transformational, or “heroic”, leader may be of less value in the future than the relational leader who works with and through others. The appropriateness of the business school model of leadership training to the cultural sector is questioned where the crisis of leadership points to the emergence of new forms of leadership embracing non‐market driven values.