In “Bowling Alone” by Robert Putnam says, “art is especially useful in transcending conventional social barriers” and “social capital is often a valuable by-product of cultural activities whose main purpose is purely artistic.” What Putnam touches on is meaningful to me as I’ve experienced and thought about it a few times in relation to my poetry. In early 2020, when I was living in California, I traveled to visit my now husband in San Francisco while he was doing client photoshoots. I wandered a neighborhood and stumbled into Bird & Beckett Books & Records where I struck up a conversation and was invited to read my poetry the following day. I read my poetry to a dozen or so people the next evening and, even though poetry can have an elusive literary quality that’s open to interpretation, people enjoyed it and gathered in this space to hear beautiful words spoken that inevitably may mean different things to them. It’s a form of bridging social capital that connects people of various backgrounds at this local, small run bookstore for a “poetry slam.”

Part of the creative economy’s titular successes in creative placemaking is also gathering spaces for artists and non-artists alike which links to Putnam’s theory of social capital—spaces like coffee shops, bookstores, bars, and restaurants. It’s also likely the reason gentrification happens—stemming from the molding of an unsafe neighborhood into a safe one through the social capital that artists nurture within these various communities. Yet, that’s another topic entirely so I digress. Ideas and meeting with those entirely unlike us can happen because of these organic or planned meetings in such spaces.

Musical performances, too, play an authentic role in engaging communities and building bridging social capital. The poet in me sees music as a medium that can invariably touch the souls of people causing the heart to vibrate to the frequency of the music they’re listening to. Sharing this with others gathered in a performance hall, you could almost say the community resonates together in this participatory enjoyment as they’re captured by the music. We dance together, sing along to the music, and share an experience that can bring us closer together even if we come from different parts of the community.

Although Putnam has a clear focus on clubs being a savior to the disintegration and polarization of social capital in America, I feel it’s also the arts that will save us as well. Art in its many spatial forms, can and does take on a soul of its own—speaking sudden and subtle languages that are mutual to all of us at some level. That’s why art itself can create authentic engagement, joy, and a feeling of we’re in this together. You’re not alone.

How my Personal Leadership Skills Can Further this Engagement

Although my style of leadership is affiliative in nature, there’s another component to my character that can lend itself to further authentic engagement in the arts. Introverted intuition or Ni is a cognitive perceiving function focused on deeper patterns and meanings contained within life. Over my career and personal life, I’ve sought out and found connections to seemingly disparate concepts, facts, and ideas. It’s also about seeing the ripple effect that can take place after certain said actions or plans. We sometimes forget that a simple fact is not always so simple, as grey areas unfold in plumes to show us the complexity of things and that they connect in mysterious, stupendous discoveries that are entirely innovative.

The advertising industry, for example, may look at my resume and courses for the Master of Arts Leadership and Cultural Management program and think it doesn’t relate to what they’re doing when in fact it does. Leadership theory is deeply applicable and understanding economics broadly within the arts and how it shapes our communities can help marketers understand their audience and the policies that shape their lives. If advertisers don’t understand the social implications of the world, how can they target effectively in tandem with global and national changes? It’s not just about numbers, it’s about people.

One might also assume that affiliative leadership is intricately linked to the concept of social capital as it’s a relational approach to leadership. Within it, empathy is one of my best superpowers. If someone is at work and feeling ill, I will ask how I can support them with their workload. When someone executes a creative solution in a way I find amazing and spot on, I want to cheer them on and tell them how awesome their solution is. I may be introverted and need quiet to collect my thoughts or recharge, but I love getting on an eye level with folks to know what matters to them, what moves them, or what inspires them. In this sphere, I’m my most authentic and grip my humanity with an iron fist in a sometimes-soulless feeling corporate world. It reconnects to the importance of social capital and understanding this about myself—the focus I have on people’s wellbeing no matter their background or the days they may annoy or frustrate me—I feel this is the way I would further this engagement through social understanding and an empathetic, compassion-driven approach to life.

Recently, I signed up to sponsor a seven-year-old girl in Lesotho South Africa. She loves coloring and I’m gathering a package together to send to her with colored pencils and a coloring book of wild animals. This part of the world struggles and I want to foster her love of coloring—of art—and maybe give her hope. Through furthering arts engagement, my values are around giving people hope as they engage in their community, so they’ll return and gather again as a tribe to further that hope while building connections with one another.