Chief Learning Officer magazine recently featured an article entitled Why Creativity Is The Most Important Leadership Quality, drawing on research an IBM's Global CEO Study, which surveyed more than 1,500 chief executive officers from 60 countries and 33 industries worldwide and which concluded that "in today's business environment that is volatile, uncertain and increasingly complex...the ability to create something that's both novel and appropriate is top of mind".
This
conclusion would seem to be a sensible one, but in terms of using this to then
nominate 'creativity as the most important leadership quality' two thoughts
spring to mind
1. The first of these is that there
a big difference between a leader themselves being a creative individual and
then having the capability to create the conditions where creativity flourishes
in the environment around them. In our experience, the latter is more important
than the former for effective leaders and would also seem to be closer to the
desired outcome expressed in the IBM study.
2. The second of these is the
classic issue where, when 'creativity' is mentioned everyone imagines that they
know what this means, but in reality it can mean different things to different
people. Our experience here is that getting to the heart of this definition is
what really matters to enable the outcomes required by the business.
As an
example of this second point, the CLO article goes on to further define what
'creativity' means in the context of this situation
According to survey results
released earlier this month by AMA Enterprise and the Institute for Corporate
Productivity, creativity is one of the hardest leadership competencies to
master. "Leaders today are overwhelmed with too little time and too much
to accomplish in any given day, said Sandi Edwards, senior vice president of
AMA Enterprise. "There is little to no time allotted for real thinking,
brainstorming or experimentation without judgement. With so much pressure to
produce quick results in the current economic environment, it may seem like a
luxury to walk away from the mountain of tasks to be accomplished.
According to Edwards, chief
learning officers who are transparent, authentic and compassionate help
employees accept the need for change and motivate them to experiment with new
ways to achieve their goals. She said, in times of change, especially radical change,
leaders cannot over-communicate. They need to ensure everyone understands both
the rationale for change and the new expectations for the business.
"Exceptional leaders can demystify the business challenges and clarify the
inevitable ambiguity associated with innovation and change, thus enabling the
employees to move forward with as little anxiety and fear as possible as they
transform the business together".
So having
explored this further, it is these characteristics of
- making time for 'important' activities (such as thinking) in the midst of daily urgencies
- simplifying / clarifying priorities
- communicating and engaging
- building trust
- dealing with ambiguity and change
(all of
which resonate in terms of the work FranklinCovey does with clients) that are
the most important leadership qualities to create the conditions for creativity
that the CEOs interviewed by IBM so badly seek.
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