Thoughts on Creative Leadership
Are you a creative leader?
Leadership isn't just about making decisions and solving problems. It's about using your imagination and your creativity to inspire others and make the world a better place. If you are merely reacting and responding you aren’t leading.
What are you trying to create?
I am constantly amazed at how many leaders don’t have an agenda. They hold leadership position in title only and fail to think creatively about what they want to do and accomplish. They march to the beat of someone else’s drum and spend decades doing someone else’s bidding while hiding behind a title or a position that doesn’t reflect who they truly are.
But you my dear reader will be different! You will commit to what you want to create and work like hell to create it. I’ve always thought that “be the change you want to see in the world” was an inspirational quote but “being” is a bit too abstract. I believe you actually have to create the change that you want to see in the world! So what are you going to create?
You are creative
If all of this creativity talk is making you uncomfortable, and you feel yourself shrinking, you may have a limiting belief around creativity. You might think you aren’t creative or you might think creativity is something that artists do but you are wrong.
In their outstanding book Creative Confidence,Tom and David Kelley suggest that most people think of artistic endeavors like drawing, writing, dance or crafting when they hear the word creativity. They subconsciously link “creative” with “artistic” and they imagine that creativity is a fixed trait that’s embedded in our DNA. Nothing could be further from the truth! We are all creative and our creative potential is just waiting to be tapped.
Create is a verb
How do you tap into your creativity? How do you unleash that amazing creative potential that lies within you? You do so by engaging in creative acts that are small and subtle. If you don’t know what you want to create, create a list of possibilities. Brainstorm and put things down on paper so you can see your ideas in a tangible way. If you know what you want to create, create a more detailed vision statement. Write about the details or better yet, spend some time discussing the details with others. Creativity isn’t a solo sport and you’d be amazed at how the simple act of creating a connection with another human being helps you clarify your vision. If you know what to do but can’t figure out how to get started, create a block of time on your calendar and get to work. Even the simple act of creating time and space can create momentum.
You are not alone
The struggle to create is universal and I just love how Anne Lamott explains how to create in her beautiful book: Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.
“But how?" my students ask. "How do you actually do it?" You sit down, I say. You try to sit down at approximately the same time every day. This is how you train your unconscious to kick in for you creatively. So you sit down at, say, nine every morning, or ten every night. You put a piece of paper in the typewriter, or you turn on the computer and bring up the right file, and then you stare at it for an hour or so. You begin rocking, just a little at first, and then like a huge autistic child. You look at the ceiling, and over at the clock, yawn, and stare at the paper again. Then, with your fingers poised on the keyboard, you squint at an image that is forming in your mind -- a scene, a locale, a character, whatever -- and you try to quiet your mind so you can hear what that landscape or character has to say above the other voices in your mind.”
If you struggle to be creative read that again! Read that part about looking at the ceiling and then trying to quiet your mind so you can hear that creative voice inside of your head. This simple passage from Anne is an excellent example of what the creative process can feel like.
We need to listen to what that inner voice is trying to tell us.
Creativity comes from within!
One final thought
If you are in a leadership position and you fail to create something that matters to you, your team, your organization, and your customers your creativity will lie dormant and you won’t have the influence and impact you desire.
