Arts Leadership Philosophy for Progress featuring Michelle Yeung

[AI ] TRANSCRIPT:

“It’s really about envisioning a future with calculated boldness. And this is about being deliberate in design and planning, but also having audacity and courage and being daring when we're thinking about the work that we're doing.”

This is High Five, I'm Heather Kelly, and today I get to speak with Michelle Yeung about her philosophy of arts leadership. A few things to know about Michelle is that she is a certified fundraising expert. She's the lead for the Creative Champions Network at the Toronto Arts Foundation, and she's also managing director of Mass Culture. And with that, I'm so excited to welcome you, Michelle, thank you so much for being with us today.

Thank you so much, Heather, for having me today and and welcoming here to High Five. I've watched many of the other episodes and so I hope that what I bring forward today, will be thought provoking and inspirational to those who are planning to pursue a career in the arts as a manager and as a leader.

You know, arts leadership is an evolving field, and it will always continue to evolve. But what I want to share today is sort of my journey over the last few years in, in sort of our pandemic world and out of the pandemic world, and through my learning and my journey through, the MBA that I just recently conferred in October.

Congrats!

Thank you so much. And just about how that has informed my own perceptions of myself. Understanding who I am as a worker, as a leader, and as a community member, and how I strive to do better in my role to support the arts sector. So those are the things that I wanted to talk about today.

I love it, I can't wait. Let's dive in. What is the first insight or learning that you'd like to share?

So in my four years of my MBA program, one of the things that continuously came through in all our courses and I have a leadership specialization from my MBA and through those specific courses, it was really sinking and coming from within, looking at our journey as leaders in in whatever field we're working at and thinking deeply about our own personal ethos and how that ethos amplifies and informs our work as leaders and managers. And so I spent four years trying to figure this out, and I'm sure it's still gonna continuously evolve as the world changes around us.

But I wanted to sort of bring forward some of the core values that form my ethos, which is authenticity, integrity, lifelong learning, courage, collaboration, and loyalty. And through this discovery, last year I came up with a statement of my own vision and my own passion for my own world and my own life. And I came up with this leadership ethos, which is to be a transformational leader who can inspire others, nurture sincere relationships, encourage openness and inclusion to make the best decisions together and have a positive impact.

So that's how I come. That's how I be, how I bring myself forward and be present in the moment and in all the roles that I have, in the sector.

I love that your personal ethos and the way you've approached it with key words, essentially that that are, that resonate, that are meaningful to you. The way that I've done it is I've called it my personal manifesto. That's the same idea. So. Yeah. Incredible. I love that, articulating your your guiding ethos. So what would be your second, insight or learning in your journey?

So my second insight in my learning journey is really that understanding that, in our roles in the arts and it's not exclusive to the arts, it's we navigate that, we navigate really complex systems and, and within the arts and culture sector, we are constantly navigating complexity. And our roles as leaders and managers is to move through this complexity that generates always generates value and forward movement for organizations and for the sector itself.

So we do this in different ways, of course, you know, bringing forward our own, core values in our work that help to manifest the change and the movement forward that we want at our organizations. And I do this through various ways and, different approaches. And, I'm not sure if you want me to dive into those right now, but love to share would be really interesting for people.

So and at the in the overall, you know, if I think about it as like an umbrella at the top, it's really about how am I through my own ethos and through my own core values, how am I going to generate, forward movement and add value at my organizations in the work that I do? And in doing this, you know, and through studying some of these frameworks, through my MBA is I hopefully am I'm trying to, you know, it takes practice is moving through three different sort of frameworks of thinking and of collaborating and of working, within the organizations and the groups that I am part of.

And one of those is, a really about cultivating a focus, flexibility mindset. And this is about focusing on present needs while maintaining the flexibility in order to meet the future needs. The second framework and concept of thinking and, bringing people together is around enlarging the circle of engagement, which is about creating a collective rather than an individual experience.

And the third framework, which I love, and I find it might be the hardest one for me to, navigate, but it's also the one that I feel speaks to the core of of who I am as well, is really about envisioning a future with calculated boldness. And this is about acting with a lot of deliberation, deliberation as well as, and being deliberate in design and planning, but also having audacity and courage and being daring when we're thinking about the work that we're doing in arts and culture.

This is the creativity part that comes in to the work that I do. That's there's so many gems there. And, you know, I'm just feeling that that boldness and creativity and audacity, I think it's also really important. So I also like to underline what you said too, about, the courage, the courage to be bold, is really important and, part of a journey as well.

Thank you. And I, I thank you so much for that. It's, it's great to hear that those things are resonating with you, and I hope that it will also resonate with the community in how we approach the work that we're doing, you know, and, and, things aren't going to get less complicated. I think they're going to be more complex as we look ahead.

And so there's there's lots here to really reflect on and how we as people add value and create that forward movement that is needed as we figure out what's happening right now and really recover from, a few years of a lot of uncertainty. So, we hope that that's, this will be helpful to others. And I want to also speak in and what about what this means in practice, you know, and that it's the combination of who I am as an individual and also how I perceive and how I want to approach making progress.

And when I talk about progress, I mean generating value and and generating forward movement. That is progress. And, we can't standstill, you know, on our own, because every the world is continuously changing. And if we're not able to change alongside the world, then we'll will no longer be relevant. Right? I know relevancy has been a big conversation over the last year, and this is these approaches is also what challenges us to, ask questions about our assumptions and also, question our relevancy and, and whatever biases that we may have.

So in practice, why I think these things are so important is that, we as individuals can't do this alone. So I'm honing these skills, you know, to really create environments, you know, values a culture within organizations that really help support, generating value and forward movement and I use sort of these frameworks and these mindsets in many of the roles that I've had.

And currently, you know, I'm a mentor in the Creative Champions Network. I also use these frameworks and navigate fluidly through between them and maybe combinations of them as we're navigating whatever complexity or the challenges that that organizations face through mentorship, through board leadership, volunteering and more. And we can even drill down to using some of this mindset in strategic planning and decision making and change management and really all the functions of an arts organization, you know, and I think, like as we look ahead, you know, just like any other sector, we're really asked and charged to be more responsible to, you know, the triple bottom line, the quadruple bottom line.

And these are this is how we're going to navigate through this. And at the center of all of this is is really positioning and centering everything around people and culture. Because we have to work collaboratively in order to navigate the upcoming challenges and bills for the future. And so, all of these sort of mindsets is really about how do we bring people together and how do we create the environments to be successful and thrive.

I love it’s all about people. And again, you know, that's the heart, soul and spirit of what we do and how we do what we do in the arts sector. Right. Such a wonderful framework, to be able to work with. So thank you so much for sharing that. I so appreciate it. Where can people find you online?

So probably the best place to find me is on LinkedIn. I come up as Michelle Yeung CFRE. But you can also find me on mass culture. And my email is michelle@massculture.ca.

Well thank you. It has been such a delight to hear your insights about your arts, leadership, philosophy for progress. And, I look forward to the next time we have a chance to chat.

And thank you for that.

And for anybody, watching and listening right now: please join us again next week for another episode of High Five. Thank you for being with us.