Creativity & Role of the

Leader

Prepared by

Vineeth.KN
 Source
Article by: M.Amabile and Mukti Khatre
From : Harvard Business Review

2
 Introduction:

w In today's innovation-driven economy, understanding how to

generate great ideas has become an urgent managerial
priority
w Creativity has always been at the heart of business. By
definition it means the ability to create some thing novel
and appropriate.
w Leaders know in their gut that creativity and innovation are the
lifeblood of their organization. New ideas can lead to
programs that are superior to those that are already going on
or planned in the organization and which would have been
divested or never initiated had a better idea or program
come along.
w
w
w
w The leader's job is not to be the source of
ideas but to encourage and champion ideas.
Leaders must tap the imagination of
employees at all ranks and ask inspiring
questions. They also need to help their
organizations incorporate diverse
perspectives, which spur creative insights,
and facilitate creative collaboration by, for
instance, harnessing new technologies.
Creativity and the role of the leader

w Drawing on the Right Minds:

Ø The first priority of leadership is to engage
the right people, at the right times, to the
right degree in creative work.
w Fanning the Flames of Motivation:
Ø Motivating people to perform at their peak
is especially vital in creative work.
 How to enhance creativity &
increase innovation?
w remember that you are not the sole
fount of ideas:
üBe the appreciative audience.
üAsk the inspiring questions.
üAllow ideas to bubble up from the
workforce.
 How to enhance creativity &
increase innovation?
w Enhance diversity.
üGet people with different backgrounds and
expertise to work together.
üEncourage individuals to gain diverse
experiences that will increase their
creativity.
üOpen up the organization to outside
creative contributors.
 How to enhance creativity &
increase innovation?
w motivate with intellectual challenge.
ü Protect the front end from commercial pressure.
ü Clear paths through the bureaucracy for creative
ideas.
ü Let people do “good work.”
ü Show the higher purpose of projects whenever
possible.
ü Grant as much independence as possible.
 How to enhance creativity &
increase innovation?
w Accept the inevitability and utility of
failure.
ü Create psychological safety to maximize learning
from failure.
ü Recognize the different kinds of failure and how
they can be useful.
ü Create good mechanisms for filtering ideas and
killing dead-end projects.
 How to enhance creativity &
increase innovation?
w Enable collaboration.
ü Combat the lone inventor myth.
ü Define “superstar” as someone who helps others
succeed.
ü Use “coordination totems”—metaphors,
analogies, and stories—to help teams
conceptualize together.
Thank you…..,


11