Creative Leadership - How To Lead Creative People. Examples

How To Lead Creative People

Creative, flexible, and entrepreneurial leaders
can create the future proactively.

Example

To Jack Welch, the former legendary CEO of GE, a good leader who can make people feel that they really are contributing members of a team, that is working toward a shared and worthwhile goal can unleash huge stores of positive energy. Welch called them "rewards for the soul," which, he pointed out, also needed to be accompanied by "rewards for the wallet." → 25 Lessons from Jack Welch

Example

Karlson as a Creative Leader of Roofland

Roofland and Its Playful President Karlson - the leader of kids

Roolfanders promised to listen to the adults down on the ground – not to obey blindly, but to adapt what was useful and add Rooflander‑style value to it.

"Adults know things," Karlson said, "but Rooflanders know fun. Combine both – and you get magic."

As an inspirational, creative, empowering, and inclusive leader, Karlson mostly led from behind. He loved to start an adventure, then step aside so the young Rooflanders could invent the rest on their own "You’re clever enough," he'd say with a wink, "and I’m hungry enough to watch."

Rooflanders formulated three shared values,
expressed as KoRe proverbs:

"Fresh air grows fresh minds."

"Joy shared is strength multiplied."

"Freedom begins where fear ends."... More

How To Lead Creative People

9-point advice by Max DePree

① Innovation is the lifeblood of an organization. Knowing how to lead and work with creative people requires knowledge and action that often goes against the typical organizational structure. Protect unusual people from bureaucracy and legalism typical of organizations.

② Be vulnerable to real surprise.

③ Be wary of incremental changes – they replace creativity and real innovation.

④ Creative people are loyal to an idea and appear to be nonjoiners. Don't demand unreasonable personal or corporate loyalty.

⑤ When you have real innovation, don't compromise.

⑥ Set the example for how to live with eccentricity.

⑦ Creative people need diverse experiences to do their work.

⑧ Creative people need constraints.

⑨ Creative people need to work with others of equal competence.

Creative Leader vs. Technology-focused Leader

A technology-focused leader tends to focus on technical matters and often overlooks the aspirations and needs of creative people. The result is that there is typically significant resistance to change.

An imaginative and creative leader has a clear view of future opportunities and needs. S/he also understands the current challenges and needs of the organization and finds ways to engage people in the journey towards the vision.