You Don't Have to Be Creative to Lead Creatively

I recently read an online article by Bryn Meredith of Bluepoint Leadership Development titled Leadership Characteristics: A Shift in Requirements? In the article, Meredith touches on an important point about Creative Leadership that I dealt with in one of my earlier articles in the Daily Improviser.


Meredith first cites the research by James Kouzes & Barry Posner (The Leadership Challenge). Over a 20-year period starting in the late 80s, Kouzes and Posner asked thousands of people to name the four most admired qualities of leaders. More than half of the respondents to their survey mentioned the following qualities in their Top 7: Honest, Forward-Looking, Competent, and Inspiring.

Meredith contrasts this Most Admired list with more recent research conducted by IBM in which respondents were asked to list the three most important leadership characteristics needed in the new economic environment. One characteristic was Integrity – similar to the “Honest” characteristic found by Kouzes and Posner. The other two – Global Thinking and Creativity – reflected new imperatives for businesses in the fierce new world of global competition. As Meredith notes:

"Creativity and global thinking represent a significant shift in the way we see the needs of effective leadership today. In fact, creativity didn’t even feature as one of the top 20 most desired characteristics in the Kouzes and Posner data, and yet in the IBM study, creativity received 60% of the votes as the most important characteristic leaders need to have today."

So what does “Creative Leadership” mean? Do leaders need to be fluent out-of-the-box thinkers, grand visionaries, boardroom improvisers? Not at all, says Meredith:

"It is not a case of leaders being more creative themselves. It is more a need for them to recognize how to create a culture of innovation within their teams whereby creativity is encouraged to thrive and grow into real time ideas that can be put into practice."

This immediately reminded me of my article about that notable Daily Improviser, the comedian Jack Benny. As I pointed out, Benny’s creative gift was not so much his skill as a natural funnyman as it was his ability to attract, nurture, and retain a team of talented writers who could play to his own strengths as a master of timing and characterization. As I mentioned in my earlier article:

"Like Jack Benny, you don’t have to be a quick-witted, off-the-cuff 'performer' in order to be a Daily Improviser. You just need the improv attitudes – listen, appreciate others’ strengths, support your team, have fun – and let your team explore and flex their way to success for everyone!"