“The world’s private and public sector leaders believe that a rapid escalation of “complexity” is the biggest challenge confronting them. They identify “creativity” as the single most important leadership competency for enterprises seeking a path through this complexity.” This was the main conclusion of 2010 CEO report issued by IBM Institute for Business Value.

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The same team has conducted Global HR study based on conversations with Chief Human Resource Officers (CHROs) worldwide, which stated that “cultivating creative leaders is one of the three key workforce gaps cited as the biggest opportunities for HR.”

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These findings only confirm that more than 2000 worldwide business and HR leaders recognize the need that Good Morning Creativity is trying to address. But before anybody starts speaking about how we can develop creative leaders, the first thing that we have to be clear about is the “definition of creative leader”.

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What roles creative leaders play in the company?

What strategies creative leaders apply to drive the change?

How is creative leadership different from traditional leadership?

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To answer these questions, we propose you to sit down with your team and play the game called ‘Meeting the Little Prince’. You remember how the little prince came to the pilot who made crash landing in the Sahara desert and asked him “Please… draw me a sheep.” After several trials rejected by little prince, the pilot found very creative solution and drew a box. He said that the sheep was inside and little price was very pleased about it! The objective of this game is to define and describe something by drawing, because our imagination is much larger than existing vocabulary.

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In our drawn definition, creative leaders play 8 key roles in order to fullfil company mission and values. Each of them is related to traditional leadership concept but what makes the difference is the strong emphasis on imagination, creative thinking and innovation. We combined for you each role with several strategies, methods or tools in order to give you wide range of options how to master it:

DREAM BIG

-         instead of being focused on what is, dream of what could be

-         don’t mix prematurely dreaming with the realization

-         dream big and dream with passion, imagine all the great things that can be done

-         facilitate the creation of vision shared by all

-         apply tools of creative planning to decompose dreams into projects and tasks

INSPIRE INNOVATION

-         connect company objectives with individual aspirations

-         ask people how we can achieve results instead of telling them to generate enthusiasm

-         use creative ways of communication with employees and team members

-         praise curiosity, creative thinking and innovation in all aspects as part of corporate culture

-         tell inspiring success stories and teach others to do the same

FACILITATE SHARING

-         engage networking with people from diverse backgrounds

-         use creative methods based on lateral thinking for leading the meetings

-         apply constant learning from others, observe and ask questions

-         connect people based on common interests not functional status

-         reward creation and sharing of new ideas

ENGAGE THE ADVENTURE

-         take initiative and involve others in the pilot projects

-         develop entrepreneurial spirit even in large companies

-         capture early rising opportunities and take risks

-         experiment, explore, execute

DEVELOP CREATIVITY

-         discover in what ways are your people creative (idea generation, questioning, combining, etc.)

-         apply diverse learning methods (written word, audio, visual, experience, playing, etc.)

-         assign time for creativity (dedicated time to think, even outside of the office)

-         implement training programs on creative thinking for all employees

-         assign team members on multi-functional projects with international scope

-         develop as well competencies not directly related to current job

CHALLENGE STATUS QUO

-         master the formulation of the problem till the smallest detail

-         ask at least 5 Why’s every day to discover if things could be done differently

-         be aware of the base assumptions used and challenge them

-         use creative questioning methods (e.g. SCAMPER, What if)

-         apply Osborne-Parnes Creative Problem Solving Process

CREATE TOGETHER

-         make people work in complex projects combining multiple functions, cultures, objectives

-         all managers and project leaders can animate collective creative workshops

-         reinvent relationships with employees, team members, supervisors and customers

-         apply great diversity of competencies in each team

-         facilitate co-creation initiatives or open innovation projects

MAKE POSITIVE CHANGE

-         recognize positive values

-         make economic progress going hand in hand with social impact

-         develop and implement solutions that are sustainable

-         create value for others

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When you will ask your team members to draw you the definition of creative leader, they can cover various aspects: traits, values, behaviors, competencies, skills, roles, relationships. While each of them will describe their drawing, you should list down subjects that will be common for most. If you find the same topics as we listed here, you can use our list of strategies, methods and tools. Next step is to generate ideas HOW YOU CAN implement them in your team/department and finally select the best ideas to start with and bring them into action .

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(If you wish to share your drawings of creative leader definition, please send them to petronela@goodmorningcreativity.com and we will publish them here!)