The New Face of Arts Leadership in the West - westaf - The Western ...

for that ideal. We can, through what we
share with one another and begin to envision,
decide that that’s what we are aiming for.
Danielle Brazell: Where do progressive
leadership styles intersect with this dialogue?
We know that there are many, many ways of
engaging effective leadership. The military
essentially is effective leadership and it is, in
fact, a very diverse organization, although
not socio-economically. In the spirit of
improvisation, I am not quite sure where I am
going, so I am going to just jump right in.
Brenda Allen: Maybe you could tell us what
you mean by progressive leadership.
Danielle Brazell: Thoughtfulness, leadership
that is inclusive, leadership that does not
necessarily follow traditional corporate models,
leadership that empowers or creates empowerment
opportunities for the stakeholders, the
organization, and the people. Maybe that
is what I mean by progressive leadership.
Juan Carrillo: Can you tell us if you
have experienced that? Do you
know people who are like that?
Danielle Brazell: Yes, and one of the challenges
in running a so-called progressive
organization with a very progressive mission is
that we have been mired in a non-progressive
model—the nonprofit, 501(c)(3) corporate
structure. That structure seemed to constantly
trip us up. My question is how, in this progressive
dialogue in which we are seeking to create
social change and social justice through an artmaking
practice, do we work in the traditional
models of governance and leadership that do
not necessarily support the mission of our work?
Samuel Aguiar Iñiguez: I understand what you
are saying about progressive leadership, and
I also want to talk a little bit about progressive
reform. You talk about the corporate structure. I
have worked in nonprofits, and I know how each
nonprofit is the synergy of a parent organization
that is owned by a corporation. As a synergy,
we nonprofits have a governing board, and
in order to get approval to do stuff, we have
to almost change the bylaws. In a way, our
hands are tied. As people who are working
with these organizations, if we have a good
idea or a progressive idea, it will get brought
to the table, and it will die there. It is kind of
like what Shane Moreman was saying, walking
backwards, looking backwards, and looking at
the whole concept of what a nonprofit is and
looking at all of the synergies attached to this
organization and seeing where these synergies
can be changed to allow that change.
Brenda Allen: That does come back to the
point you raised about leaders challenging
what is going on. I suspect that is another place
where we can collaborate with one another
and harvest some ideas of how you have succeeded
with that, if anyone has. I also believe
that there is probably information in history as
you look at different ways groups have resisted
and have transformed where we are in society.
I suspect there is some guidance, some wisdom,
within that. So those might be some ways to
begin to get at your really important concern.
Tony Garcia: It seems to me like a lot of the
discussion about progressive organizations
and about building progressive leadership has
to do with power dynamics as well. People
are talking a lot about not being in control of
those organizations or in those situations or not
being in control of that power dynamic. As a
result, we are looking at the leadership that
already exists there from the outside. One of
the things to consider as we go through this is
how to ally ourselves or become part of new
organizations or new ideas so that, once we
get into position, we can take over those power
dynamics. A lot of the conversation is about the
leadership that people have experienced, and
this is how it happened, but we were outside
of that power dynamic. But the evolution of
things indicates that, at some point—that is
why we are here—we will be in positions to
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