Inspiring Creativity Through Leadership

Energizing your team, and taking your business to the next level

by Lynn Marlow

There are a lot of reasons why some businesses stagnate, not knowing how to encourage creativity, or, worse, actually squelching it. Playing it safe in business can minimize thepossibility of catastrophic failure, and so some managers are very reluctant to institute change or to take risks. But that same aversion to risk can also prevent a business from achieving its full potential, and from climbing to the next level.

• Assess your leadership style, if necessary with the help of a coach or consultant. Take stock how you operate, and where you can get better. If you’re too controlling, need reminders of your status and power, or fear taking risks, you may be stifling creativity. If you don’t follow through, or are inconsistent, your employees will lose motivation. Remind yourself to keep an open mind, and to resist trying to micromanage or control every situation. You may have a wonderful vision, but if your employees are constantly discouraged from acting independently and boldly, you may beat the creativity out of them.
• A good manager is both a strong leader, and a good listener. Pay attention to your employees, take their concerns and their ideas seriously. Engage in conversations, and take the time to hear their perspectives on everything from their own roles to where they’d like to see the company go in the future. Absorb as much of their wisdom and experience as you can. Then be the one who makes the final decision, and take full responsibility for it. Make it definitively, have good rationales, and be consistent.Your employees will follow you to the ends of the earth.
• Be honest with yourself about your strengths and weaknesses. If you’re more of a linear problem solver, good at long range planning and practical, logical solutions, make sure you include on your team plenty of people who are able to think outside the box, synthesize ideas and keep you flexible. If you’re full of creative ideas but lacking focus, hire people who know how to follow through, and make your brilliant ideas a practical reality. Value both sides of the brain, and both sides of the business equation.
• Insist on hiring the very best people for the job, and let them know that you expect a lot. Then step back and trust your gifted and experienced staff to do what they do best. Recognize the talents and contributions of your employees, but don't compromise. If someone isn't contributing to the growth and innovation of your company, replace them with someone who will.
• Create an environment where creative thought is encouraged. Make ridicule and counterproductive criticism unacceptable, and don't rush to judgment. If someone comes up with a bold idea, encourage them to flesh out an implementation plan before you decide whether or not the idea can work.
• Encourage your employees to know and understand the big picture. Share information with them, help them to get a good feel for their role in the larger goals of the company. Make sure they each understand and value the roles and contributions of the other employees. Let them share in company successes, and be part of the analysis of failures.
• Provide time and space for brainstorming sessions. Once a week, get your team together to play. Encourage them to express all the most extreme and outrageous ideas they can think of. Challenge them with out-of-the-box puzzles. Let their creativity bounce around the room, and watch how putting creative minds together increases exponentially the ideas that are generated. And the more ideas generated, the more great ideas you’ll discover. Take a look at the Creativity Curve, and you'll see what I mean.
• Recognize that creative people sometimes need quiet thought for ideas to generate. The flow of creativity is not consistent or predictable, and thinking is every bit as important a part of the process as doing. When you see a gifted employee just sitting at their desk, thinking, leave them alone. Wonderful things are happening.
• Hire a creativity coach to work with your team, and with you, to discover new ways of making your business more dynamic and successful. Bringing in new ideas from the outside is a great way to inject new energy into a business, and to get the juices flowing again.

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©2006 Creativity Unbound

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