Creative leadership: A Western Perspective

Creative Leadership: A Western Perspective

International Summit Forum

Development of Creative Leadership Talents in the Process of Globalization

Shanghai Jiao Tong University

• 15 June 2014• Donald C. Menzel, Ph.D

Creative Leadership:A Western Perspective

Donald C. Menzel, Ph.D.2005-06 President

American Society for Public Administration

What, Why, How?

• What is creative leadership?• Why is creative leadership important? • How is creative leadership achieved?

Big Questions

• Can creativity be learned?• Can leadership be learned?

What is creative leadership?

• Creative– Doing something different?– Doing something better?– Doing something no other has dared to do?

• Leadership– Motivating others?– Realizing a vision?– Getting the job done?

Creativity

• Creativity and creative thinking have become an essential life skill.

• Creativity is about more than imagination, diversity in thought, or simply standing out as different.

• Creativity is the ability to produce original ideas that serve some value or solve some problem.

“Creativity is intelligence having fun.” Albert Einstein

Creativity

• True creativity involves three ingredients—novelty, usefulness and realization.

• Thus there is a close conceptual relationship between creativity and problem solving.

• Leaders need to be creative problem solvers.• Creativity and innovation are widely viewed as

fundamental to professional success.

Basics

• Leaders• Managers• Leaders vs Managers

Management Triangle

Top mgt

supervisors

Middle mgrs

Frontline workers

Managers as Leaders

• The manager does things right; the leader does the right thing;

• The manager administers; the leader innovates;

• The manager relies on control; the leader inspires trust.

Why is creative leadership important?

• We are in an era of an unprecedented pace of change that is innovation heavy.

• In the last 200 years there have been a total of 25 inventions, both social and technical, that have qualitatively altered our lives—it took more than 3,000 years before 1800 to achieve the same number of life-altering inventions.

• To deal successfully with complex and turbulent times—Mastering complexity is key to creative leadership.

Creative Work

• In 1900 less than 10% of the United States population worked in what are considered “creative” jobs, i.e., work that requires higher order thinking and imagination. One hundred years later this figure increased to 30%.

• Content on the worldwide web doubles every 18 months which has led to ubiquitous availability of information.

Social Networking

• In the 20th century the term “social networking” had no meaning—today, it’s mind boggling—with Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Flickr, Youtube, Pinterest

• Facebook has ~1.3 billion monthly active users

Confounding Factors

• Globalization & Revolution in Information Technology

• Blurring of boundaries (private/public)• End of Hierarchy• Diversity– Cultural– Religious– Race/Gender

• Situational/contextual

. . . More confounding factors

• Interdependency & networking• Internet• Individualism—empowerment• Organizational complexity

What is creative leadership?

Types/Styles of Leadership

• Transactional—Henry Ford (Model-T)• Transformational—Steve Jobs (Apple)• Entrepreneurial—Bill Gates (Microsoft)/Mark

Zuckerberg (Facebook)• Transcendent—Mohandas Gandhi & Nelson

Mandela• Charismatic—Ronald Reagan (USA

President)/Bill Clinton (USA President)• Creative--??

Mark Zuckerberg"Move fast and break things. Unless you are

breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough."

Creative Leadership

• Creative leadership is highly relational, grounded in process, utilizes diversity, requires self-reflection and is focused on accomplishing positive change

• Resides between transformational and transcendent approaches

• More than individuals with vision

Creative Leadership

• . . . is the combination of creativity (the ability to generate ideas) with leadership (the ability to execute them through the actions of others).

• Is the ability to deliberately engage one’s imagination to define and guide a group towards a novel goal—a direction that is new for the group.

Creative Leadership

• Draws together three distinct but interconnected constructs—creativity, leadership, and innovation

• Creativity is believed to be the “catalyst to innovation.”

• Is an improvisational and experimental art

How is creative leadership achieved?

Leadership Development Programs

How is creative leadership achieved?

• The Good News? – in many ways• The Bad News? – maybe in too many ways?

Basics

• Employee learning programs in U.S. business is “big” business– $170 billion in 2012

• US companies spend $14 billion annually on leadership development

Creative Leaders

• What separates creative leaders from non-creative leaders is their ability to generate and execute innovative ideas.

• Traditional leaders tend to execute “tried-and-true” strategies such as cost-cutting or product extensions, but they rarely disrupt their industries or create new product categories.

Creative Leaders are . . .

• Humble yet visionary• Able to recognize mistakes and transcend

them• A master at empowering members of his/her

team to greater leadership

Qualities and Skills

• Tolerance for ambiguity• Ability to assess and be comfortable with risk• Ability to quickly and effectively assess an

individual• Ability to balance passion and objectivity• Ability to change• Creative leaders are comfortable with

ambiguity and experimentation

Leadership Development Programs

• Successful?• Failures?

Successful Programs?

We just don’t know!!

Why do leadership development programs fail?

1. Training – development is not equivalent to training

2. Training focuses on best practices; development focuses on next practices.

3. Training is often a rote, one size fits all4. Training usually occurs within a vacuum

driven by past experience, not by future needs

Why leadership development programs fail?

• Training focuses on maintenance; development focuses on growth

• Training encourages compliance; development emphasizes performance

• Training places people in a box; development fees them from the box

• Training places people in a comfort zone; development moves people beyond comfort zones

Four Common Mistakes

1. Overlooking context—a brilliant leader in one situation does not necessarily perform well in another.

2. Decoupling reflection from real work– Onsite vs off-site programs

3. Underestimating mind-sets– Changing behavior means changing mind-sets

4. Failing to measure results– Begins and ends with participant feedback (not sufficient)– Monitor participants’ career development after the training

Creative Leadership:A Western Perspective

Donald C. Menzel, Ph.D.2005-06 President

American Society for Public Administration

Sources• David C. Bauman, “Leadership and the Three Faces of Integrity”

The Leadership Quarterly 24 (2013) 414-426.• Nicholas Clarke, “Model of Complexity Leadership Development.”

Human Resource Development International 2013. 16:2 (135-150).• David V. Day, John W. Fleenor, Leanne E. Atwater, Rachel E. Sturm,

Rob A. McKee, “Advances in leaders and leadership development: A review of 25 years of research and theory” The Leadership Quarterly 25 (2014): 63-82.

• Jessica E. Dinh, Robert G. Lord, William L. Gardner, Jeremy D. Meuser, Robert C. Liden, Jinyu Hu “Leadership Theory and Research in the New Millennium: Current Theoretical Trends and Changing Perspectives” The Leadership Quarterly 25 (2014): 36-62.

Sources

• Doug Guthrie, “Creative Leadership: Managing Complexity to Achieve Alignment” Forbes 5/24/2012

• Gerard J. Puccio, Marie Mance, Jeffrey Zacko-Smith, “Creative Leadership: Its Meaning and Value for Science, Technology and Innovation.” https://www.academia.edu/Documents/in/Creative_Leadership

• Pierre Gurdjian, Thomas Halbeisen, and Kevin Lane, “Why leadership-development programs fail.” McKinsey Quarterly (January 2014)

Sources

• Mike Myatt, “The #1 Reason Leadership Development Fails” http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikemyatt/2012/12/19/the-1-reason-leadership-development-fails/

• Mike Myatt. “leadership Basics—5 Keys to Success” http://www.n2growth.com/blog/leadership-basics/