matthew teitelbaum on leadership

CEO of the Art Gallery of Ontario, Matthew Teitelbaum shares a few words in a video on the Globe and Mail website. Here's a bit of what he had to say about managing the Frank Gehry renovation...

On leadership:

"My job as a leader was, in a general sense, to give people the tools to do the best job they could."

On goal setting:

"Keep alive the short-, medium- and long-term goal."

On change:

"At the very root of this project is the notion of change. And in any change process, there is an extraordinary sense of loss. My experience is, if you don't anticipate the loss, if you don't somehow talk to what people have to give up, then you can't keep them with you. So you have to talk about what they're giving up in the language of what you're going to create for them. And when you do that, you can keep diverse interests together because everyone feels that they're part of the end goal."

On relaying a vision:

"Leadership is about clearly articulating, to the best of your ability, the path to the goal. Repeat the goal, repeat the goal. ... Keep your eye on the goal and find effective, powerful ways to communicate that in different ways."

On work relationships:

"To lead a process of change, you have to empathize both with what people are getting and what people are giving up. So stay close to the people who you need as your community and really listen. Stay close to them, create the relationship, listen so you can move forward because a change process is painful."