As we continue our Core Leadership Competencies series, we’re excited to consider yet another quality that is in high demand in today’s leaders: creativity. As the world continues to rapidly change, creativity in leadership – and the innovation it produces – is increasingly understood to be a key driver of organizational success.
Leaders who understand, value, and promote a culture of creativity bring a competitive edge, not only to their own careers but also to their teams and organizations.
Let’s look at some of the ways creativity can benefit you and your organization. Then we’ll consider practical ways you, as a leader, can cultivate an organizational culture of creativity.
Benefits of Creativity in Leadership
In addition to the domain-specific knowledge and skills requisite for their role, today’s business leaders are expected to have a wide array of soft skills. Many of these skills – such as strategic thinking, adaptability, risk management, problem solving, and the ability to drive employee engagement – are directly correlated to creativity.
For example, a leader who thinks creatively is better positioned to see a situation from multiple perspectives and to assimilate a vast amount of information. This in turn lends robustness to their risk analysis and strategic planning, advantageously positioning their team with the ability to pivot quickly.
As a result, they may be able to anticipate and adapt to market trends more quickly than competitors or be the first to find a novel solution to a pivotal problem that’s plaguing the industry.
Despite the growing awareness of the powers of creativity, most creative corporate cultures don’t spontaneously come into existence. Rather they are cultivated intentionally.
Here are some time-tested practices that you can employ to nurture a culture of creativity in your organization.
#1: Empower Creative Thinkers from all Ranks
Nearly two decades ago, Harvard Business Review reported on an “eye-opening analysis of innovations at Google: Its founders tracked the progress of ideas that they had backed versus ideas that had been executed in the ranks without support from above, and discovered a higher success rate in the latter category.”
Yet tapping ideas from all levels of an organization can prove challenging. This is largely due to the way hierarchical structures create “differences in status among people” and “impedes the exchange of ideas,” according to Robert Sutton, Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University.
Sutton argues that a key responsibility of leaders is to “figure out how to get [powerful] people to shut up at the right time,” thereby empowering those with the best ideas to be heard.
“There’s zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.” – Susan Cain
“Leadership is the art of giving people a platform for spreading ideas that work.” – Seth Godin
#2: Don’t Let Process Straightjacket Creativity
As stated by HBR, “The classic response to increased scale in an operation is increased reliance on process—a standardization and continuous improvement of ‘the way we do it.'”
While process optimization offers many benefits, those benefits must be held in tension with the risks of an over emphasis on process and the narrowed thinking that can result.
Bob Sutton observed, “The poster child here is Kodak, which kept making the process of manufacturing and distributing chemical-based film more efficient instead of devoting attention to making the shift to digital photography….In other words, it kept getting better and better at doing the wrong thing.”
As an advocate for creativity in leadership you have an opportunity to keep a watchful eye on the role of process in your organization. Certain aspects of creative work – such as employing multiple, diverse perspectives – are inherently “inefficient.”
Yet as Kim Scott, best selling author and former leader at Apple and Google, observed, “the problem comes when an emphasis on efficiency causes managers to try to avoid duplication of effort. ‘In creative work,’ she noted, ‘you need to have people approaching a problem from different angles.’”
#3: Remember that creativity benefits you personally
Creativity in leadership not only offers a host of benefits to your career as a leader and to the organizations and projects you lead; it also promises to benefit you personally.
Research has found that creativity boosts individuals’ sense of well-being; in turn, the stronger one’s sense of well-being, the more creative they are in their daily life.
If you’re looking to increase your effectiveness as a leader or to simply infuse some positivity and well-being into your day-to-day, consider diving deeper with some of our resources to cultivate more creativity in your life.
Of course — as always — let us know if you need more support in the development of creative leadership skills! No matter where you and your team are at in your leadership journey, the HPA team is here to help
