Nine Aspects in Creative Leadership

Creative leadership can be described as "Adaptability meets Agility" and "Innovation meets Principles."

Creative leadership is the ability to inspire, to create, and to maintain the social and psychological conditions and the environment in which everyone is able to: (a) reach his or her highest potential; and, (b) contribute "leadership" in areas of his or her unique competencies. 

Creative leaders are futuristic and forward thinking: Realizing that what has worked in the past isn't today's best solution and having the vision to see what it has now become. Creative leaders are the ones who are capable of predicting future trends, manage the presence and delegate the past. In each context, a creative leader is always conscious of the changes needed to connect the past with the future, prospecting and communicating tangible such as resources and intangible such as cultural changes needs and identifying the proper vision for each cycle in the life of a corporation.

Creative leaders are adaptable: Creative leadership is being flexible enough to adapt to the situation and the players involved. It means doing unexpected, unconventional things or methods to connect with your team--whatever it takes to get the job done, done well, and leaving everyone feeling good about it. It is similar to the situational leadership, where the leader has the flexibility and adaptability to use the wide range of leadership skills available to them and the self-awareness to know when and how to use and develop the skills of those that they lead.

Creative leaders are inspirational and motivational. Creative Leadership is when you think, act and enable others with a creative spirit that drives positive change. Creative leaders are those who will be able and capable of leading the entire management team by increasing their productivity, encouragement, capacity building, motivation, rewarding and appreciation, beyond their performances and open-minded as well as friendly with the staff in the working field and able to get the hearts of staffs.

Creative leaders are resourceful: Creative leadership is essentially anchored on the leader's overall multifaceted resourcefulness. That is, the multidimensional (including introspection) competencies to formulate creative (unconventional) alternatives or solutions to resolve problems, to show versatility and flexibility in response to unpredictable or unanticipated circumstances.

Creative leaders are out of the box thinker: Thinking outside the box, going against the grain. At times throwing away conventional means and trying something radically new. What is creative leadership? Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) views Creative Leadership: It's the capacity to think and act beyond the boundaries that limit our effectiveness. Every leader and organization face obstacles that are difficult to surmount - from corporate executives confronting the complex global marketplace to educators trying to lift student achievement to nonprofit groups and government agencies addressing critical social issues with tight budgets.

Creative leaders are inquisitive: The creative leader's mind start from the very beginning, ask the fundamental questions- 'why?', 'why not?', 'alternatives?', 'who' and 'who for' and 'what are your learning experiences?' and then follow the courageous routes these questions take you, be prepared to stumble on the way. One aspect of genuinely Creative Leadership and that is the willingness to take risks - to break the rules, to push the envelope, to go beyond what is expected, to deliver above and beyond the call of duty. 

The more "creative leaders" we have, the better for the world: The proper function, the ultimate criterion of "creative leadership," is the ability to create more leaders, to spread leadership - or, more precisely, to groom "followers" (the people for whom one is responsible) into leaders. Stated differently, "creative leadership" is the ability to develop the people for whom one is responsible for leaders in their own right. (1) Every human being, by reason of his or her uniqueness, has the potential to "lead" in one or more areas for which he or she is especially "equipped"; and (2) some of the social and psychological problems that are afflicting individuals, institutions, and organizations might be due to inadequate opportunities for people to realize their potential and to contribute leadership in areas of their special competence; and, resultantly, personal sense of futility. 

Creative leaders have culture intelligence: Cognizance, sensitization, and sophistication to what cultural differences in leadership perceptions, approaches, and communications can contribute to our understanding of leadership, and what we deem as 'creativity' in leadership, which at times is down to cultural difference in traditions, practice, and perceptions of organizational productivity and community 'norm.’

Creative leadership can be described as "Adaptability meets Agility”: Creative leadership is the unique combination of leadership behaviors that develops and achieves high quality and meaningful results over a sustained period of time. Creative leadership does this by challenging him/her self and staff to find optimal high-value solutions to provide clarity on high priority objectives, criteria, quality and results integrated with a strong expectation that innovative solutions can be found by engaging and challenging staff and partners to develop innovative alternatives. Take the team and sort of rearranging the chairs by assigning each to something new to them, reverse team roles, turn things upside down and approach problems from a 45-degree angle. Creative leadership requires the strength to review a recommendation to a problem or decision and reject it because the leader knows there has to be a better solution. This is done by challenging individuals and groups to think broader and deeper within the parameters of defined success criteria. As a result, a high achieving culture is built within an organization. It is the consistent expectation for innovative solutions while leading people to grow beyond existing levels of performance and capability. It combines restless dissatisfaction with the current state coupled with the excitement of leading individuals or groups to find solutions that will produce results no one thought possible. 

The characteristics of genuine Creative Leadership show the following 'dispositions; Visionary, Faces reality, Adaptable, Persevering, Competent, Ethical, Courageous, Curious. These supported by the following habits: Open minded, Collects [thoughts and ideas], Seeks [new experiences], Plays, Challenges, Surrounds [interesting people, things, environment], Enjoys solitude. 

Posted in: Creativity,Future of Leadership,Innovation,Mindshift