Saumarez Smith explains why the plutocrats aren't so patronising now

In a recent speech, Ed Vaizey, shadow minister for the arts, extolled our cultural leadership, mentioning a number of key figures, including Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate and Nick Hytner, director of the National Theatre. It was intended to reassure the cultural community that an incoming Conservative government would protect the international prestige of British culture.

What Vaizey did not say, and what is a much harder question to answer, is why, at a time when business and political leadership is being questioned, we have been pretty successful at breeding effective cultural leaders. What is it that cultural leaders have in common? And what is being done to foster it?

These questions preoccupied me when I was director of the National Gallery: why had some directors been successful? Was it to do with the time in which they lived or attributes of personality? Or the quality of support they receive from their boards of trustees?

What is clear is the extent to which the history of any institution is describable in terms of the taste and temperament of the people who have been in charge of it. If one looks at the history of the National Gallery, as of any cultural institution, there are many people besides its director involved in its management, including politicians , the board of trustees (not always to good effect), the staff and not least the public who visit in enormous numbers and whose expectations shape the way the collection is displayed...

Charles Saumarez Smith (KC 1972, History of Art) was born in 1954 and was educated at Marlborough and King's College, Cambridge, where he was a scholar and got a double first in history and history of art. After graduating, he spent a year at Harvard University as a Henry Fellow studying at the Fogg Art Museum and then returned to the Warburg Institute as a postgraduate student. In 1979, he was elected Christie's Research Fellow at Christ's College, Cambridge and, in 1982, he joined the staff of the Victoria and Albert Museum as an assistant keeper with special responsibility for V&A/RCA MA in the History of Design. In 1990, he was appointed head of research at the Victoria and Albert Museum. In 1994, he was appointed director of the National Portrait Gallery and, in 2002, director of the National Gallery.

Dr Saumarez Smith is a governor of the University of Arts, London, an Honorary Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, and has received honorary degrees from the universities of London, Westminster, Sussex, East Anglia and Essex. In 2002, he was Slade Professor at Oxford University.

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Do you want to see good leadership in Britain? Well, look to the arts, not business or politics