What Is Creative Leadership? (Plus Why It's Needed)
Leadership in the workplace is integral to the success of a company because leaders, like managers, supervisors and directors, guide new hires into their roles and help teams collaborate to reach their goals. Each person in a leadership position may guide their team differently, but there are some established leadership styles they may use.
In this article, we discuss creative leadership style, why it's useful and how it differs from other types of leadership styles with its goal to create a productive workplace.
What is creative leadership?
Creative leadership is a management practice that involves using creative ideas to solve complex problems and changing situations. Creative leaders often find new ways to achieve their goals and improve the company for which they work while also considering the impact of their work on employees, customers and the planet. Often, creative leadership is useful in industries that change frequently and require new products or trends to please customers, like the fields of technology or fashion.
Why do companies need creative leadership?
Companies and organizations need creative leadership when they work in changing industries and fluctuating markets to help them make revenue and improve their business. Creative leadership can also be useful for raising employee morale and job satisfaction, as innovative processes can often make employees' jobs easier or more fulfilling. Satisfied employees and creative leaders can then work more efficiently to solve challenges in the workplace and keep their company or organization performing well.
Another reason a workplace may need creative leadership is to keep up with the wants and needs of customers, which often means creating varied focuses for the company or organization, like increasing profit and creating sustainable products rather than only doing one of those things. This can help a business last longer in changing markets and allow leaders to constantly shift their goals for more positive outcomes.
How is creative leadership different from other types of leadership?
Although many leadership techniques have the similar goal of improving a business, many of them hope to achieve that goal in different ways. Creative leadership differs from some other types of leadership in the following ways:
Tradition vs. innovation
Creative leadership is often more innovative and less traditional than other leadership styles you might encounter in the workplace. With creative leadership, you and your team can create new ideas and look past established methods to find more efficient ways to increase productivity, employee satisfaction and revenue. This is because creative leadership values independence and innovation from everyone on your team and encourages all employees to present their ideas in meetings and help you think through various challenges, which is often different from the traditional structure of many workplaces.
Stability vs. freedom
For some leaders, creating a sense of stability for employees in their daily work helps them ensure production continues at a steady rate and that new hires complete training. In comparison, creative leaders often appreciate freedom in work techniques more than a structured workday for all their team members. This flexibility in the workplace may mean employees have a choice about when and how they complete their work during the week. Doing this can create more varied work techniques and styles that may help different employees thrive and create interesting solutions to workplace obstacles.
One perspective vs. diverse perspectives
While many leadership styles focus on the leader's opinion based on experience and expertise, creative leaders may prefer to hear multiple perspectives from a diverse group of employees, customers and their partners before making decisions. This is because creative leadership values a company's impact on the world and on the local community, so understanding how a decision affects multiple groups is one of the best ways to choose options that benefit everyone. Combined with the freedom and innovation of creative leadership, diverse perspectives can create more useful, thoughtful solutions in your industry.
Employees vs. people
Another way creative leadership differs from other leadership styles is that creative leaders value their team members as employees who complete work and as individual people who have unique lives and abilities. Rather than relying on traditional methods of motivating employees and setting goals, creative leaders use their innovative thinking skills and adaptability to create plans for their employees that consider each individual's skills and respect their lives outside of work.
This can create a culture of positive work-life balance and may improve employees' job satisfaction. When you respect your team members and their lives, it allows them to be more comfortable and fulfilled at work.
Tips for developing your creative leadership skills
Use these tips to help you develop creative leadership skills that positively influence your company and employees:
Accept ambiguity in the workplace. When you can accept ambiguity in your work environment and industry, you may learn to predict obstacles or changes more easily and better prepare your team for all possibilities. As a creative leader, you can also use ambiguity to your advantage and make new ideas to improve your company when changes arise to distinguish your company from the competition.
Practice your creativity. Practicing your creativity can help you create more interesting, innovative ideas with little information and to use similar situations as inspiration when overcoming obstacles or changes at work. You can practice your creativity skills by using mind exercises like brainstorming and playing strategy games like chess that allow you to see possibilities where others might not.
Be open-minded about new ideas. Open-mindedness is an important skill for creative leaders to develop because it allows you to see different perspectives for each situation and to accept suggestions and ideas from others. One way to practice being open-minded is to take a moment to think about each new idea presented to you before deciding whether it's worth pursuing.
Aim for success instead of perfection. Although it's useful to have goals for your team to strive toward, try to focus on the overall success of your team and company rather than on each employee performing perfectly. Creative leaders often use obstacles to improve their teams, so consider meeting with each of your employees regularly to learn their strengths and help them succeed.