Tag: creative leadership

Embrace Curiosity

Illustration from Edwin D. Babbitt’s The Principles of Light and Color, 1878, (public domain)

“… what you learn today, for no reason at all, will help you discover all the wonderful secrets of tomorrow.”

Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

After publishing my recent post, “Five Quotes About Listening,” I began to think more about the relationship between listening and curiosity. I started to think that curiosity might possibly be the most important leadership trait. It creates relationships and is a key to both social and emotional intelligence. It feeds innovation and informs shared vision (you have to be curious about what an alternative to the status quo might look like in order to make it happen). Without curiosity, we can get locked into inaction by a sense that the familiar is an absolute, immovable reality.

Without curiosity, mysteries and crimes would never be solved. Novels could not be written. Curiosity inspires learning, and discovery. Without it, there would be far fewer scientific discoveries. Scientists will tell you that the laboratory isn’t just a series of “eureka” events. More often than not scientists will look at some result in their lab and say, “hmm, that’s weird.” Curiosity is sparked. Discoveries are made.

Years ago, I was working on a writing project. I had been researching the life of a woman who had accomplished some amazing things as a teenager in the early 1930s. She had passed away, but one of the people I interviewed told me that the subject of my research had a younger sister who was still alive, and that she would be happy to introduce us. This was a tremendous opportunity.

I prepared a list of eight to ten questions to ask the younger sister. On the day of the interview, I got to the third question, and her answer introduced ideas I had not considered. My curiosity told me to go down the path the sister was taking me, rather than the path that would fill the gaps of the story I had thought would be important to tell. As a result of remaining curious about the direction the sister led me, my understanding of the story I wanted to tell became deeper, more nuanced, and compassionate.

Curiosity makes you dig deeper. It can bring additional clarity to positions you already hold. But it can also give you the courage to change your mind.

Curiosity is a prerequisite for creative leadership, and continuous learning. Being a leader doesn’t mean that you know everything. It means that you are always on the lookout for context, lucidity, and insight. Curiosity allows you to see the world through many different lenses. Be curious.

Traditional Versus Creative Leadership

“The role of a creative leader is not to have all the ideas; it’s to create a culture where everyone can have ideas and feel that they’re valued. So it’s much more about creating climates. I think it’s a big shift for a lot of people.”
– Sir Ken Robinson

traditional vs creative leadershiptable: John Maeda and Becky Bermont/Redesigning Leadership

A creative leader is able to bring out the creativity of other people. It is the opposite of “do as I say, not as I do” leadership. More than other types of leadership, this is really about cultivating an organizational culture that supports and values creative thinking and problem-solving.

A survey of over 1,500 CEOs, conducted by IBM found that creativity is the most important leadership quality. Flexible, open-minded leaders rely on creative problem-solving at some level every day.

According to Sanjay Dalal, CEO & founder of the website Ogoing, the top three characteristics and traits of creative leaders are:

“1. Great at generating many ideas – innovative, game changing and even commonplace.
2. Always looking to experiment with good ideas. Sometimes, trying out a few times.
3. Unwavering belief in their creativity and innovation, coupled with originality in thinking.”
See more at http://creativityandinnovation.blogspot.com/2007/01/top-ten-creative-leadership-traits.html

Creative leadership isn’t just about generating novel ideas or approaches; it actually changes systems. Travis N. Turner notes that, “creative leaders tend to pursue revolutionary strategies (that reinvent the system) rather than the incremental strategies (that improve the existing system).” For this reason I believe that it is more than a fad, or a “flavor of the month.”

Strategic thinking is inherently creative thinking. Leaders are continuously imagining how events will unfold. They are developing contingencies based on the reality that things are not always predictable.

An article by consultant Charles Day, in Fast Company magazine listed the “four weapons of exceptional creative leaders.” You can see how his list includes a number of ideas we have explored already. Day’s list includes:

  • Context – Context is built from the future back, based on the best current information. Understanding context requires both knowledge and imagination.
  • Clearly Defined Values – Shared values are the heart of an organization’s culture. Creative leaders realize that this arises from conversation and discovery, and not from orders or memos.
  • Trust – Eric Hoffer said, “Someone who thinks the world is always cheating him is right. He is missing that wonderful feeling of trust in someone or something.” Be creative. Imagine how you are going to establish and maintain trust among your stakeholders.
  • Momentum – According to Day, “Innovation is the consequence of exploration. And you can’t explore while standing still.” Nowhere is creativity more important than in creating and maintaining momentum.

There is much more to say about this (design, process, developing creativity skills, . . .), so more on this topic later.