The post “Why Are Creative Leaders So Rare?” by Navi Radjou who reflects on Dr Kalam’s (former President of India) lecture titled "Creative Leadership in the Global Knowledge Economy" in which he articulates the following eight key tenets of creative leadership.
- The leader must have a vision for the organization
- The leader must have the passion to transform that vision into action
- The leader must be able to travel into an unexplored path
- The leader must know how to manage both success and failure
- The leader must have the courage to make decisions
- The leader should have nobility in management
- Every action of the leader should be transparent
- The leader must work with integrity and succeed with integrity
Leaders drive change and lead people in the pursuit of a vision. This means leaders are often faced with the challenge of venturing into the unknown and the unfamiliar. On any journey into unfamiliar places requires that the leader adjust and respond to unexpected situations. The ability of the leader to navigate in these times requires the traits of a creative leader as described above.
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I couldn’t agree more. What’s funny though is that you rarely hear about “creativity” as a leadership trait. But it is so necessary!
The world to a leader looks very much like a sandbox. It may be an empty sandbox. Or, it may already have a sand castle. But either way, a leader with no creativity won’t be able to do anything but sit down and play with the sand or existing sand castle and won’t make any forward progress. In fact, if there is a sand castle, the un-creative leader may even knock it over.
However, enter the creative leader. Before the creative leader even steps foot into that empty sandbox, he or she already has in mind infinite possibilities about what could be built. Will it be a castle for her princess? Will it be a fort for his G.I. Joes? Will it be a highway system with tunnels and ramps and bridges for his trucks? The point is that through creativity, the creative leader will be able to come up with “something” to do with the sand. And, if a sand castle already exists, then the creative leader will have already spotted where it can be improved, or whether or not it needs to be demolished in order to make way for a more robust sand castle that cannot be built upon the existing foundation.
And of course the key to all of this is simple creativity. Without it we’d be that kid who just sits there in the empty sandbox wondering what to do. With it, only we can hold ourselves back.
Enjoyed it,
-Kyle
A problem I have seen is that people are often promoted for conformity so there are few creative leaders.
All the best from Brighton,
Mark
http://integrationtraining.blogspot.com/
Creative leadership is another type of leadership that is often ignored, to the detriment of a leader and his/her followers. Striving for those 8 excellent points of creative leadership is exactly why there are so few creative leaders – it takes a lot of effort, practice and openness to be a creative leader.
Instead of just driving a car to the destination, creative leadership calls you to try and find a different way. It may not be better in the end, but it gives you a choice of ways that spawn new ideas, expressions and hope. A leader like Pres. Obama may not be entirely successful, but give him props for trying to be a creative leader, because the same old doesn’t always work.
It takes creative leadership skills to handle conflict by communicating effectively. Read some tips to turn conflict into a winning scenario using your creative leadership skills in my article, Leadership Skills: Handling Conflict
-Anthony
I think a leader must also make sure the vision is translated down to all levels of the organization.
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