“You should create a team where you would want to belong yourself”

Mikko Fritze mentioned that he would always give his employees the possibility to work, never showed he knows better and never expected from them anything he himself could not do.

“You should create a team where you would want to belong yourself. To acquire the necessary qualities of a leader, you must be in constant readiness to receive information from your colleagues, it is also important to be energetic and never get tired of communication.”

Zviad Mchedlishvili considers that those who aspire to be successful leaders, first of all, should realize what the meaning of “a leader” is.

“A leader is a person that first and foremost can control themselves, and only then the others; the person that achieves the result with the help of others.” – says the local expert. He advised all culture managers to receive more information, read and watch video material.

“First, we need to identify the source of information for ourselves, and then elaborate a method of its introduction into our organizations. Information without practical use is similar to a vast library with no visitors,”- he said.

Zviad Mchedlishvili is positive that the Tbilisi training for cultural leaders will definitely help the participating art-managers.

Developing leadership skills is very important for the executive director of Valerian Gunia Young Theatre-makers’ Union of Georgia, Nino Gunia-Kuznetsova:

“Leadership, first of all, is to believe in your idea and to be able to share it with others; this is a huge effort and the ability to include others. I prefer team work and don’t consider authoritarianism to the best way of managing. I personally lack analysis and the ability to calculate the steps ahead. That is why I often come across unexpected situations, especially – when I have to deal with the bureaucracy. As for the training with Mikko Fritze, these kinds of meetings are very useful as it is one more chance to get to know the experience of others.” 

“Sometimes dictatorship is needed, sometimes – creativity and trust”

The project manager at Youth Theatre Sofia Dekanozishvili thinks that it is very useful for Georgian art-managers to get acquainted with the foreign experience as the majority of them are self-taught managers:

“Necessary qualities of a leader are different in all particular cases and everything depends on human resources. Sometimes dictatorship is needed, sometimes – creativity and trust, it depends on the goal – as the goal always justifies the means. As for the personal qualities of a leader, to my mind, it is important they should always be able to build relationships with people and identify human resources in the right way”.

Nino Chkhaidze, representing the youth organization Artway came from Batumi to participate in the training:

“My organization carries out the project targeted at the involvement of young people in the cultural processes; this seminar is completely dedicated to the development of the leadership skills. Leadership for me is a healthy process of management, where activities are not carried out only based on the directives. A leader is a main person, who motivates the team, without taking any decisions single-handedly.”

“A leader is a person who can create an interesting and worthy product”

The director of 24-hour theatre festival and the founder of contemporary art research laboratory, Nino Maghlakelidze works in the field of experimental art and therefore she very often has to implement the ideas quite often new in Georgian space.

“Leadership for me is the presence of a unique experience, unlike the people around. To me, it means the management of human resources, fundraising and the ability to realize the ideas at all levels. To have such a training for cultural leaders is an achievement for Georgia.” – says Nino Maghlakelidze.  

Nino Gamrekeli – manager and producer states that a leader is a person that, first of all, can create an interesting and worthy product: “It is impossible to acquire the necessary leadership qualities, but it is possible to discover them in you and develop them, though it is impossible to learn how to be a leader.” – Nino Gamrekeli says. 

* Notes from a workshop in Tbilisi (April 18, 2016).