Embodying Creative Leadership
Leadership is the art of giving people a platform for spreading ideas that work.
—Seth Godin
Creative Leadership Thinking
Click the image to read the “Connecting to Your Creativity” post in full
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post on creative thinking and each person’s innate ability to tap into their creativity to expand their possibilities, whether in the personal or professional realm. The image above, from that post, lists the elements that help creativity flourish. Let’s look at how creative thinking translates into more effective leadership.
In his recent post about Wynton Marsalis’ leadership style, Greg Thomas framed Marsalis’ style as an interdependent and collaborative leader. Greg’s description of Wynton’s style included: “shares arranging duties,” “distributes authority,” and “circulates decision-making widely.” We can also look at Wynton’s leadership style through the lens of creative leadership.
An artist’s way of thinking is full of awareness, energy, and a willingness to fail many times to discover what really works. It’s grounded in inventiveness, imagination, innovation, vision, originality, and resourcefulness.
Many leaders are trained to think in a linear fashion, and so rarely come up with radical ideas that disrupt or reshape their industries. A creative leader creates clarity of purpose for their teams and sees opportunity in the apparent obstacles of complexity and ambiguity, be it human or organizational. Modeling creative behavior—creating options and making adjustments along the way—is a fundamental action of creative leaders. Taking risks and trying out new approaches sends a clear message that novelty is not just tolerated, but encouraged.
Nurturing a Culture of “We Innovate”
Creative leadership is highly relational and presupposes that everyone can contribute new ideas leading to growth experiences.
Creative leadership is grounded in process and structure while challenging the assumptions of the status quo.
Creative leadership attracts team members who raise the caliber and diversity of the collective.
Creative leadership leverages diversity, acknowledging that the drive for a solution to a problem or challenge can have several outcomes.
A creative leader is self-reflective and views life as a journey where the chance to learn and develop is always present.
A creative leader provides a harmony of purpose and intent focused on accomplishing positive change.
Creative leadership can help leaders establish organizational climates that encourage and facilitate every person’s innate creative ability.
The role of a creative leader is not to have all the ideas; it’s to create a culture where everyone can have ideas and feel that they’re valued.
—Sir Ken Robinson
In Out of Our Minds: The Power of Being Creative, author Ken Robinson describes three roles of a creative leader, within three areas: personal, group, and cultural. Under the personal role, an effective leader facilitates the creative abilities of everyone in the organization, not just the areas typically associated with creativity, such as design, marketing, and advertising. In the group role, a great leader forms and facilitates dynamic creative teams, brings select people together, sets boundaries and expectations, and provides resources to tackle the project. In the cultural role, the leader promotes a general culture of innovation, a balance of freedom and control blended with imagination and creativity. Such qualities of innovation are also what drives jazz improvisation.
Note the use of the word facilitate in the Personal and Group roles above. Creative leaders exercise facilitative leadership, moving back and forth, into and out of the action, not always directing. From a high-level perspective, he or she can see patterns and look beyond them–to see the context for meaningful and lasting change.
We’d like to hear from you. To share your thoughts about examples of creative leaders who fit the description above, please write in the Comments section below. Thanks!
