ZOMBIE LEADERSHIP

20 July 2026

I’ve just broken one of my own rules and commented publicly and critically  – albeit to  a very small audience via my work blog – on an article about Australian Arts Leadership written by two delightful women I know. For those who are particularly interested in this topic, you can check out their academic paper and my response here: https://www.anntonks.com.au/category/anns-blog/

In summary, they think Australian arts leaders are bad because the people who appoint them rely on out-of-date leadership theory or what they call “zombie leadership”. While I agree that there are old fashioned approaches to what a leader looks like, that there are a few arts leaders who aren’t brilliant, and that Arts Boards are better at appointing Managing Directors than Artistic Directors, I believe that these academics haven’t structured an appropriate research plan to test their theory and don’t understand what actually goes on within arts recruitment and selection processes.

I was reminded of the last AIMAC (International Association of Arts and Cultural Management) conference I attended. On one level, it was a wonderful experience because it was held in Venice when the Biennale was on. But on the other, I just remember sitting through academic paper after academic paper pondering the gap between theory and practice, between academic and arts manager, between what the researchers thought they knew and what they didn’t understand. I’ve been lucky enough to have worked in both the world of theory and of practice and I wish there was more cross over between the two. Ironically, a number of papers on co-leadership in the arts that I’ve co-authored are quoted positively in the zombie leadership article but the end result is still a flawed piece of research that insults every hard working and effective arts leader in the country.








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