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Chapter
10
Leadership in Non-Proit Organisations
Leadership in Non-Profit Organisations
Beste Gökçe Parsehyan
Beste Gökçe Parsehyan
Additional information is available at the end of the chapter
Additional information is available at the end of the chapter
http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/65268
Abstract
Emerging at the end of the twentieth century, non-proit sector has taken on a new
signiicance. Non-governmental organisations, health institutions, educational
institutions and museums are examples for the variety of non-proit organisations.
Museums are deined as the symbols of national cultures and bridges uniting the past
with the present. However, it may be suggested that this deinition has lost its validity
on a large scale due to globalism that penetrated into our lives in the twentieth century.
Globalism and multiculturalism played an important role in the industrialisation of
culture, and being the symbols of culture, museums assumed the form of dynamics
within this industry. Accordingly, the concept of museum leadership gained importance. The increasing competition amongst museums makes leadership more crucial.
Compared to other sectors, museums have not been studied enough in terms of
leadership and the late, but the necessary atempt to improve museum leadership is of
vital importance for cultural industry. This study irst discusses leadership and nonproit organisations separately, and afterwards, it investigates into leadership in nonproit organisations. Lastly, it elaborates on museum leadership, which is a popular
concept of the modern day.
Keywords: leadership, non-proit organisations, third sector, museums, museum
leadership
. Introduction
Non-proit organisations emerged with their own features and dynamics all around the world
towards the end of twentieth century. The sector, in which these organisations take place,
especially in developed countries, is called non-proit sector, voluntary sector, non-governmental organisations or the third sector.
© 2017 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
© 2017 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution,
Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use,
and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Contemporary Leadership Challenges
There has been a remarkable change regarding the number, employment shares and incomes
of non-proit organisations after
s, and this acceleration has been revealed through
researches [ ]. Modern democratic countries are divided into three sectors in general. The irst
one is called the public sector whose employees are oicials providing public service at
municipalities and at general or annexed budget boards. The second one is the for-proit sector
constituting the fundamental economic power of the state. The third and the last one comprises
voluntary organisations such as foundations and unions which are also called citizen sector,
voluntary organisations sector, the third sector or sector of non-governmental organisations.
The third sector afects both the public and the private sector, and its efects are social, economic
and political. When the related literature is examined, it could be observed that sector-based
studies use terms related to the third sector according to their subject maters and that the
organisation-based studies use the terms of non-proit organisation. Corneulle deines this
sector as an independent sector. Its irst use as ‘the third sector’ dates back to
s. This
deinition was irst used by American social scientists like Ezioni, Nielsen and Levit. The
European counterparts Douglas, Reiehord, Ronge however, started to use the term in
s. Salamon and Anheier consider the emergence of non-proit organisations as the greatest
novelty of the twentieth century [ , ].
Non-proit organisations operate in several ields such as education, culture, religion, health,
politics, environment, public and prosperity works. Such organisations also have functions
like raising the rate of employment, organising income-net worth and providing social security
services. They usually serve to interests beyond the individual, and they collaborate with other
non-proit organisations while competing with them. Either public or private, these non-proit
organisations became a part of the knowledge society as the third sector.
Non-proit organisations, with their increasing number, go through various problems like any
other organisation in public or private sectors [ ]. These problems could be gathered under
ive titles:
• Absence of proit rate: evaluating the success of a irm in accordance with the proit rate is
the common subject analysed within the deinitions of business administration in social
sciences. However, this is not the case when non-proit organisations are concerned. For this
reason, the leaders of these organisations state that proit is a criterion used to control the
administration and they use it to evaluate the performance of organisations.
• Absence of competition: competition is considered to be an element raising the quality of
service and enhancing the irm in for-proit organisations. However, competition is not
common amongst non-proit organisations, and even if it occurs under certain conditions,
it is not a motivation tool that beters the organisations.
• Policies: policies have a signiicant role in public sector organisations. Even the establishment of public organisations can be based on policies. On the other hand, non-proit
organisations tend to develop their own policies. They make efort to give their service
especially to receivers with the same policies.
Leadership in Non-Profit Organisations
http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/65268
• Administrative structures: the responsibility of administration in private sector organisations belongs to top manager. In non-proit organisations, however, a commitee owns the
authority. Responsibilities are shared and decisions are taken by more than one person. As
a result, decisions are delayed and the quality gets weaker. What is more, in such organisations, commitee members are assigned according to their political and inancial power
as well as their self-devotion instead of administrative characteristics.
• Atachment to traditions: non-proit organisations are atached to traditions. For instance,
there is an important common view in Turkey suggesting that the senior manager of an
organisation should be an engineer or a technical staf member. It is considerably diicult
to change these traditions and to apply modern administrative techniques instead of them.
When the above-mentioned problems are taken into consideration, it could be seen that the
main problem stems from management. In his work titled ‘Managing for the Future’, Drucker’s
statement on how non-proit organisations are in need of efective leadership more than irms,
as they do not have a good functioning administrative structure, is still valid [ ]. It could be
observed that the administrative commitees of non-proit organisations are still deicient. The
members should go through a training process, and new methods should be developed to
evaluate their performances.
Leadership is one of the most controversial and investigated subjects. While there are several
analytical and theoretical researches on leadership in private sector, studies on leadership in
non-proit organisations are limited and most of the researches that have been done so far are
on non-governmental organisations. However, being a new sector, leadership in charities and
unions is very open to research.
. Leadership
Before a detailed investigation into leadership in non-proit organisations, it would be
beneicial to mention how the concept of leadership has developed briely.
The question ‘whom the communities should be governed by’ has been a discussion topic since
the emergence of city-states. Related debates that had been initiated by Ancient Greek
philosophers like Socrates and Plato could be based on a scientiic basis by the twentieth
century. The qualities that should be owned by community leaders and the leaders themselves
were addressed in statements about leadership made before twentieth century.
It was Socrates who came up with the irst argument. He opposed the idea that communities
should be governed by nobles only, and he emphasised that people leading communities need
to be virtuous and knowledgeable. Just like his master, Plato also took atention to the
signiicance of education. Dividing the society into three as producers, auxiliaries and
guardians, Plato stated that each class must receive education. Therefore, he took the guardians
to war to exhibit their heroism. Candidates for guardianship were subjected to education until
they got to their s. Following this education, Plato regarded another educational period of
 years in which the candidates were taught mathematics, geometry, harmony and astron-
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Contemporary Leadership Challenges
omy necessarily. When they got to their s, candidates would start to study philosophy for a
period of
years, and when they got to their s, they took an exam. The ones who passed
the exam gained the right to be community leaders. Plato foresaw a tough education system
and he demanded that community leaders be puriied from all ambitions. He claimed that only
philosophers who are virtuous and knowledgeable are capable of self-devotion for the state
[ ]. Regarding Socrates’ and Plato’s discourses, one could infer that leaders must be virtuous
and knowledgeable, and a long process of education is needed in order to achieve wisdom
and virtue.
Niccholó Machiavelli, an Italian Renaissance philosopher who is deemed to be the founder
political science, stated that human beings are selish, evil, self-seeker and acquisitive by
nature. To him, leaders should be aware of these features while leading people and they should
make use of every mechanism including religion. He argues that authority does not derive
from God, but from man. Contrary to Socrates and Plato, he claims that political success is
more important than morals. The society might be afraid of their leader and Machiavelli
indicates that the fear stems from love and compassion [ ]. The idea that leaders should possess
virtue had lost its popularity during its journey from ancient Greece to Renaissance. Power
became the most important feature to be a leader.
Religious beliefs started to be questioned with the commencement of French Revolution in
eighteenth century. Philosophers like Kant and Voltaire claimed that humans could determine
their own fate and control it through rationalism. Two separate beliefs were born out of
rationalism in nineteenth century: the belief in humans’ capability for perfection and advancement [ ]. As the concept of god was put into question, humans were believed to be individuals
who could display rational behaviours.
Sigmund Freud and Max Weber following him came up with ideas against rationalism
therefore, the beliefs it had provoked started to disappear. The reason why the concept of
leadership cannot be deined clearly is atributed to Freud’s and Weber’s destructive approaches to rationalism. Freud discovered that the unconscious mind setled behind the
rational mind and he theorised his idea that a signiicant amount of human behaviour stemmed
from the unconscious. Weber, on the other hand, was intrigued by the limits of reason and he
investigated rationalism devoid of morals, which he called technical rationalism. To him,
bureaucracy is a solid example of technical rationalism. The most horrifying aspect of bureaucracy is that it dehumanises people and demolishes productivity. Weber believed that it
was only the charismatic leadership that could stand against bureaucracy. However, Hitler,
who was depicted as a charismatic leader in the twentieth century, overshadowed Weber’s
belief with the ferocious genocide he caused [ ].
Disappearance of the belief in rationalism led to an acceleration in studies on leadership. Social
scientists began to argue whether leadership was a trait gained through nurture or nature.
They concluded that one might be born with certain characteristics suitable for leadership and
that these characteristics could be improved by means of education.
Leadership in Non-Profit Organisations
http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/65268
Centres for leader training were irst established in the USA and today one could ind them
everywhere. The initial reason of seting up such centres was to teach what leadership required.
Organisations have made great efort to raise lead managers in recent years.
. Leadership in non-proit organisations
Leaders must be eager to make choices. Organisations, whether they are for-proit or nonproit, determine strategies and are shaped in accordance with these strategies. Leaders play
a crucial role in designating the strategies of organisations. For this reason, it is important that
they, leaders, do not hesitate while making decisions and that they use initiatives. Most of the
organisations charge leaders only with keeping up with the recent developments and monitoring the process. However, one of the important responsibilities of leaders is to teach the
organisational strategies to their staf and to make them embrace these strategies.
The absence of leaders could result in dramatic consequences. To illustrate, organisations
might lose their ability to keep pace with the changes in their environment fast and consequently, they might lose their sustainability.
It would be wrong to consider leaders as oicials working in senior manager positions. Leaders
could be in any status of an organisation. On the contrary, most of the organisations today
prefer that their middle-ranking staf take on a leadership role. The very reason for this
preference is that the staf is supposed to compete with the rapidly changing circumstances in
the sector.
Leaders of an organisation are able to cope with diiculties and come up with solutions against
them. However, managers may not know what to do when they face changes. Contrary to
them, leaders set a course for the future predicting any possible change to come. Apart from
the rapid change in the environment, technological developments and the increase in specialisation also threaten the sustainability of organisations. Managerial skills on their own are not
enough to lead groups. Therefore, organisations need leaders who would evoke groups. Some
organisations, on the other hand, choose to work with lead managers.
Leaders of organisations are not only important for sustainability but also for the employees.
Inluencing the employees and leading them towards the target through motivation are
amongst the responsibilities of leaders who also play an important role in arranging the
internal and external environment of organisations. What is more, leaders are needed to beneit
from the employees on an optimum level and to give organisations the success they need.
The related literature presents us diferent forms of leadership, which brings a question to
mind: Is leadership in non-proit organisations diferent from leadership in for-proit ones? At
the irst glance, ‘proit’ seems to be the sole element distinguishing them from each other.
However, there are several other diferences in administrative terms. It would also be wrong
to claim that only one type of leadership is suitable for non-proit organisations. Leaders of
non-proit organisations are supposed to have diferent features. Therefore, one could observe
that the recent form of visionary leadership is more integrative.
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Contemporary Leadership Challenges
When museums are concerned within the scope of non-proit organisations in Turkey, the job
adverts and one-to-one interviews reveal especially using popular term ‘vision holder’ that
potential administrators are expected to have visionary leadership qualities.
The exact date when the concept of ‘vision’ got involved in the leadership literature for the
irst time is unknown, but it came into use after
s. Together with the works by Burns,
Bennis, Bass and Tichy & Devanna, the outputs of related publications and studies grew in
number thus, subjects like ‘the new century’s approach to leadership’, ‘fundamentals of
success’, standpoints, components and deinitions started to be revised with the contributions
of diferent disciplines [ ]. There are various interpretations of vision and visionary leadership
produced by several authors. To Conger, vision stands for means providing success for future
[ ]. His deinition is supported by Yukl [ , ]. Boal and Bryson suggest that vision is the
picture of the future that clearly displays the values and goals [ ]. Using similar deinitions,
Snyder and Graves deine vision as the energy of the leader and the employees, directing
resources towards a speciic target and an outstanding way of making, discussing and
presenting the image completely [ ].
The sustainability of organisations is in relation to vision carrying the future to the present.
On the other hand, vision in organisational terms is designing, developing and sharing the
future of the organisation together with picturing the organisational future. Senge backs up
this description by saying that vision shapes and directs the future of an organisation and it is
a means through which an organisation identiies its objectives [ ]. A visionary statement
shows the destination and it certiies what happens when the destination is reached.
Leaders are pioneers. They are the ones taking irms to new horizons, taking elusive opportunities and guiding the employees. What guides leaders is the vision. In this respect, vision
is signiicant for leaders and visionary leadership is crucial for organisations. If the leader and
his followers do not know where they are heading to, leadership does not mean anything.
According to Taylor, however, a leader not only establishes the vision but also shares it with
the employees [ ]. Leadership is the ability to design a common pursuit and a process in
which the vision and objectives of people, groups or organisations are inluenced in their way
to reaching targets. Visionary leadership is the ability to establish a vision that is realistic,
trustworthy and interesting for a whole organisation or for a part of it and to express it. If this
vision is chosen and applied properly, it strengthens all the sources together with the skills
and abilities of the employees. A vision holder leader is the person who not only forms a vision
but also possesses the ability to explain it to the employees. Accordingly, the employees should
be informed about the way they will follow and their targets by means of clear, oral and writen
communication. Last of all, activities should be identiied irst and be classiied according to
their priorities in order to make vision applicable under diferent circumstances.
A visionary leader not only conveys the vision orally but also demonstrates it to the employees
through his behaviours. As visionary leaders, business administrators of today should
establish a vision that could bring success to their organisation and to the employees by
foreseeing the future and through participative understanding of management. They need to
develop strategies and make progress fast with a proactive approach that changes threats into
opportunities. Being aware of the beneits constant learning provides visionary leaders must
Leadership in Non-Profit Organisations
http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/65268
build up organisations that always learn and they need to believe in the necessity of training
while catching up with the novelties and changes. They should inspire the employees and
integrate them into the process by giving them authorities. Visionary leaders motivate
employees with the help of the vision. The master of the organisation is the leader and he
ensures that the employees focus on the future aims of the irm. Visionary leaders always pay
atention to what the employees say and they respect the values while doing that which
strengthens their position. When the employees feel that their views are appreciated, they
embrace the vision appointed by the leader and sincerely make an efort to realise it.
A visionary leader gives the employees responsibility by assigning authority to subordinates
however, he holds the utmost power to establish a vision and to plan it. Nonetheless, the vision
should not be taken over by the senior ranks. It should be claimed by the whole organisation
and checked regularly to make sure that its values are transmited to each employee and the
leader needs to evaluate the performance within the organisation according to competitors.
Innovations and changes should be followed closely.
In sum, visionary leaders are people who draw the picture of the future together with the
employees in organisation’s way to success by taking the performance of employees to the
peak point with high levels of motivation and collaboration. Being aware how essential change
and development are, they build up a strong organisational culture and spread it within the
organisation.
The foregoing description of leadership could be deemed as a synthesis of many others and it
draws atention to the leader’s capability of motivating and establishing a vision. Leader’s
power is atributed to the level at which his employees want and accept the vision he establishes. According to this approach, the leader symbolises the source of reason and authority.
The employees hope to be atached to the leader and to his vision. As a result, visionary
leadership today means a common understanding of management that is active and dependent
on a team.
It gets more and more diicult for organisations to be sustainable within the third sector, which
includes non-proit organisations. The competition environment is not as complicated as the
private sector. Nevertheless, third sector organisations have diiculty in gaining income and
the reason is that most of the non-proit organisations survive with the aid of external donations. Visionary leaders motivate and organise their employees well so that they can persuade
them to make strategic moves in line with the vision of the organisation. To illustrate, when
the histories of art organisations are investigated, it could be observed that they were state
organisations exhibiting art only. The irst step taken in the USA of transferring art
organisations to foundations or the establishment of new art organisations by foundations got
serious reactions. As it was all about art, art historians protested when some speciic parts of
museums started to be rented to restaurants or cafés or even to special occasions like fashion
shows, premiere nights and when they multiplied as branches with museum shops in them.
Despite all these, the leaders of such organisations were able to suppress the critiques with the
vision they had, and although they could not do away with them, they managed to tone them
down.
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Contemporary Leadership Challenges
It is very challenging for museums to survive nowadays. The most distinguished and contradictive example for this is the Guggenheim Museums. The Guggenheim Foundation sets up
branches similar to those of a fast food chain. For this reason, many people renamed it as
‘McGuggenheim’. There are failures amongst the branches as well as those that achieved
successful business.
It would be narrow-mindedness to think that tickets are the only income source for museums.
Museums cannot aford their expense items such as administrative or personnel costs solely
through visitors. The preliminary aim of museums is to make art works accessible to as many
people as possible. Therefore, they provide service free of charge once a week. Museum leaders
rent some spots to food or retail sector for extra income. What is more, they make deals with
other brands of private sector and organise award ceremonies, special exhibitions and fashion
shows for example, Guggenheim-BMW collaboration . They ofer workshops, in addition to
online and onsite seminars. They put the works of the artists on the market at premiere nights.
Museum cards provide them with membership income. They also accept sponsors and
donations as works or cash.
Leaders use diferent methods each year to generate an income. There is no doubt that while
visionary leaders soften the criticism they face with the help of those methods, some of them
make strategic mistakes. For instance, renting a museum for wedding ceremonies is a wrong
strategy and the leader who allows that has to face the results. Only highly qualiied works of
art can get into a museum collection and insuring such works is considerably expensive. When
the value of art works and the organisational prestige is taken into consideration, leting
museums used as wedding venues is unacceptable. Once an organisation is discredited,
sustainability becomes impossible. This is the reason why decisions taken by the leader are
vital and as mentioned before, the job adverts look for the quality ‘vision holder’ as a prerequisite.
Museum leadership became a subject mater in the last decades of
s. There are several
universities around the world ofering postgraduate programmes on museum leadership. In
addition, certain institutions open up certiicate programmes. Symposiums and conferences
are arranged each year to host studies of museum leadership. When Turkey is concerned
however, it has not become a topic to be researched yet since art organisations are still not
popular study objects. It could be assumed that museum leadership will become a speciic
topic to work on only after a few years.
. Museum leadership
The professionals working at a museum from the lowest ranks to the highest one should
adapt themselves to the external environmental conditions quickly. They should be able to use
the technological equipment that they are supposed to possess. As a quality, leadership is a
must for all the employees since each professional at museums is in the foreground no mater
what their position is. For instance, everyone from the managers to the assistants at the
Leadership in Non-Profit Organisations
http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/65268
curatorial department deals with the artists, visitors, donators and sponsors. A team performs
the tasks, and there is only one leader organising and directing the team.
Museum leaders should have a good grasp of business administration and inance in addition
to their knowledge of art. Universities include ‘arts management’ into their graduate and
postgraduates curricula in order to educate leaders with related qualiications because only
individuals equipped with learning of both administration and art history can possess the
vision that can lead an art organisation. A managerial approach to works on its own brings a
museum down. Likewise, dealing with a museum through the standpoint of an artist or an art
historian may result in a perfect museum, but after some time the lack of administrative
knowledge causes gaps in administrative departments, which can bring the museum to an
end.
Semmel stated that museum leaders
at any level
need six core skills as follows [ ]:
• Strategic agility: regardless of their level, museum leaders should be good at taking quick
and clever steps and they should approach problems from diferent angles being lexible
and open to ambiguity.
• Geting personal: each successful move and change within a museum necessitates cooperation of workers. One thing that afects cooperation is the relations set up amongst workers,
and another thing is the level at which the leader is self-aware and skilled in social terms.
• Communication: the way an organisation stands with its executive team, external partners,
ields of activity and how regular, consistent and honest this stand is what maters. The
messages given by the museum through its plans, exhibitions, programmes, campaigns and
partner relations lead it to success or let it down.
• Data luency: museum leaders of any level must detect, adjust and apply ield or sectorrelated metrics and benchmarks.
• Rapid and rigorous prototyping: fast standardisation is useful when new programmes are
identiied in terms of their activeness, capability and scalability.
• System leadership: system leadership necessitates seeing the big picture, being involved in
productive enterprises and directing the focus from reactive problem solving to working
together for the future. Seeing the big picture prevents each person in the organisation
geting distracted so they pay atention to the mission which culminates in additional value
for the community and the public.
Museums leaders should be eicient in making plans and they should identify the objectives
and targets clearly while conducting plans or establishing the organisational schema. The
business plans draw the course of action and they include personnel employment, the inancial
sources and the necessary equipment which are the instructive elements within it. On the other
hand, strategic plans are signiicant in terms of the organisational development and just like
in other organisations, the characteristics, vision, mission, the success criteria, aims, targets
and the position of a museum within the sector are presented through its strategic plans. Seting
up such plans requires team work. The interaction between the leader and his followers is
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Contemporary Leadership Challenges
another factor that determines the application and execution of the plans. Visionary leaders
are good at puting the plans into use.
Private museums in Turkey are as prevalent as state museums. The most outstanding ones are
Sakıp Sabancı Museum, Istanbul Museum of Modern Art and Pera Museum which are also
active worldwide. Each of these museums operates according to the foundations they are
ailiated to. Sakıp Sabancı Museum is connected to Sabancı University a foundation university , Istanbul Museum of Modern Art is connected to Istanbul Modern Art Foundation and
Pera Museum is ailiated with Suna and Inan Kıraç Foundation.
Private museums, which became popular after
s around the world, began to spread
around Turkey after
s. The irst private museum is Sadberk Hanım Museum, which was
established in
in connection with Vehbi Koç Foundation. The common point that makes
Sabancı Museum
, Istanbul Modern
and Pera Museum
signiicant is that
their permanent collections have been exhibited worldwide and that they have hosted
important artists and visitors from all around the world for their temporary exhibitions. They
all have similar organisational structures. As they are non-proit organisations, their income
sources are donations, sponsors, special activities, museum shops, cafés and restaurants.
The establishment of private museums in Turkey is a tumultuous process due to bureaucratic
obstacles. Turkey has private museums due to the decisive stance leaders have taken for the
establishment of museums. The atitudes of leaders who get things are shaped due to their
vision. Social scientists underline the importance of the need of visionary leaders to make a
diference in a constantly changing environment [ ]. Visionary leaders go beyond simply
fulilling common expectations they are also a source of inspiration and encourage their
employees to believe in the dream they put forth. Visionary leaders like Abraham Lincoln,
Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King are leaders who arouse feelings of solidarity in
people, liven institutions and call upon the necessary resources in order to turn their vision
into reality. Turkey’s irst modern art museum was also opened by this kind of visionary leader.
The establishment of the Istanbul Modern Art Museum was tumultuous. The chairman of the
executive board Oya Eczacıbaşı took action to establish the museum in
however, the
museum was only opened in
. The atempts made at establishing a modern art museum
were trumped by the government under the excuse that the country had to deal with more
pressing issues. However, Eczacıbaşı did not give up on her dream and turned Turkey’s
membership into the EU negotiations into an opportunity by opening up the irst modern art
museum. On social media, the Istanbul Modern Art Museum is the th most followed modern
art museum in the world, right after the New York Metropolitan Museum.
The establishment of the Pera Museum also has a similar story to that of the Istanbul Modern
Art Museum. Inan Kıraç, the vice President of the Suna and Inan Kıraç Foundation, dreamt of
establishing a museum in Taksim at the beginning of the
s. He even had Frank Gehry, one
of the most famous architects in the world, prepare designs of the museum, paying a signiicant
amount of money for these designs. However, the project could not be realised due to the fact
that the necessary permissions could not be taken from the local authorities. The Pera Museum
was established in
in Taksim, but in a diferent location that intended.
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During the same years, the Louis Vuiton Foundation started the construction of a museum in
Paris, and it is now one of the central atractions of the city. The museum has seven thousand
visitors every day. The Paris Municipality has leased the land to the Louis Vuiton Foundation
without charge for
years. Through this example, it can be seen that the culture and art
policies of Turkey are far behind those of the United States and Europe.
Transactional behaviours are not suicient to convince employees of organisations where
hierarchal relations are intense of radical changes. This is why, especially for non-proit art
institutions, visionary leaders will have to take personal risks outside of traditional behaviours
in order to convince, motivate and gain the trust of their followers [ ]. Nazan 5lçer, the
manager of the Sakıp Sabancı Museum, is a risk taker. When they decided to exhibit the works
of world famous artists such as Van Gogh and Matisse, the Museum had a low budget and
limited advertising possibilities. Taking into consideration the limited interest in arts in Turkey,
this can be seen as a risky decision outside of traditions. However, the exhibitions were met
with enthusiasm, permiting many museums in Turkey to reserve higher budgets for the works
of international artists. In this context, thanks to the vision of its leader, the Sabancı Museum
was able to break new ground and serve as an example to other museums.
All three museums have added value to Turkey’s artistic circles and will continue to do so.
Museology as a profession in Turkey is newly gaining meaning. However, thanks to the
successful leaders and their teams of art institutions, this process is gaining momentum,
turning Istanbul into one of the leading cities in the ield of art.
It is important that those working for non-proit art institutions have a specialised education
in this ield. There are very few Turkish universities ofering undergraduate courses on the
management of art organisations. When the curricula of departments like arts management
and museum studies are investigated, it could be observed that both business administration
and art history courses are included in them. There are ive universities ofering arts management as a degree and two on museum studies. There are no programmes or seminars on
museum leadership.
Nowadays, museums are still not being managed by professionals of the ield. Museums are
mostly managed by people who have only undergone studies in art, or who have only
undergone studies in management. If the structuring of museums does not change in the near
future, I believe that they will put their sustainability in danger. If interdisciplinary studies
such as art management and museology become more widespread, this will provide a basis
for the institutionalisation of museums. This way, there will be more museums that will
artistically have more quality work and will be more professional on an organisational level.
We can deine the museums that are established in this manner ‘ideal museums’. Ideal
museums today are limited in numbers. Especially in developing countries such as Turkey,
where arts and culture policies are not developed enough, it is diicult for art institutions to
ind support. Museums are standing thanks to their own eforts, as opposed to government
help. At this point, museum leaders have a big job to do.
The number of works concentrating on non-proit organisations is limited. Accordingly, museums being a more speciic topic have not been studied enough but it could be suggest-
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ed that this will change in the following years. Studies and education on museum leadership
around the world are spreading rapidly, and at some point, Turkey will have to focus on
them too. Otherwise, it will be very diicult to replace the aforementioned leaders in the
near future.
Author details
Beste Gökçe Parsehyan
Address all correspondence to: b.gokce@iku.edu.tr
Department of Arts Management, Istanbul Kultur University, Istanbul, Turkey
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