Creative Choices° is delighted to partner with the Cultural leadership programme to publish A cultural leadership reader.

The Reader comprises a collection of contributions (available in print and online here in PDF), together with the additional articles and book reviews available here on Creative Choices°.

"Those of us working in the cultural sector know the value of understanding how artists and creative people think – but we don’t always recognise that the very same reflective analysis of what leaders and managers do, can be of equal value.

Although I have always been keen to question, ‘What just happened?’ when something has gone well or badly, I’ve never thought that someone else might like to read about it. When I was asked to contribute to this Reader, I was lost at first – what would I have to say? But then I was pleased to have the opportunity not just to describe an issue I thought was important but to reflect and learn from it as well. 

However good we all are at learning new skills, attending courses or reading about practice, we still need to find time to share experiences and reflections. Together we can build an invaluable store of what we each know, as well as recording how we’re all responding to the external challenges we face. I sometimes wonder if we’d started a ‘story bank’ from people managing arts capital projects or delivering innovative work funded by the National Lottery, whether together we’d have been able to do more to influence policy and practice.
 
So this is a call to stop, reflect, record and share..."

Pauline Tambling, Managing Director
National Skills Academy for Creative & Cultural