What Leading A Team of Creatives Taught Me About Leadership
Everything we do is creative — including how we lead.
From a young age, we are often put into a box as either being creative or not. A simple binary that convinces us that we are gifted or naturally uncreative, with little room between for the endless permutations that make us, well, creative. And the implication isn’t just that we end up shying away from dabbling in the arts — it impacts our view of generating original ideas, too.
The label of being ‘uncreative’ followed me throughout my early 20s until I came to the realization that virtually everything we do is creative in nature. Kathryn Haydon shares in Psychology Today, “When you say you’re not creative, you inadvertently perpetuate a myth.” Coming from a family of talented Fine Artists, Creative Directors, and Fashion Historians, I have tremendous respect and admiration for what defines a true craft and how fluid creativity can be. As the sole person in my circle to pursue a career in business, I allowed this archetype to characterize who I am and most importantly — how I do my work. In order to break from the confines of this limiting mindset, I’d need to reframe my day-to-day tasks as opportunities to create, iterate and innovate.
Find yourself building pitch decks for investors? Crafting strategy or designing diagrams? Setting new standards for culture and purpose? All creative exercises. For some of us, we may not be proficient in painting, photographing, or skilled in graphic design, but the creative process simply looks different. A long-understood quality of collaborating with designers is that their process and work product are deeply personal — from concept to execution. Creative work is inherently personal and therefore constructive criticism or a need to revise a finished product is received with greater sensitivity. Regardless of our field of work, whether it is in the arts, business, or otherwise, our process is innately personal.
At the beginning of the pandemic, I pivoted to the world of advising startups in the art and technology space. It was a drastic departure from the industries I had worked in previously and I was eager to learn from the artists who were at the heart of these service businesses. What I didn’t realize, even after a lifetime of peripheral exposure to artists and designers, was that there are 5 types of creative thinking: divergent, lateral, aesthetic, system, and inspirational thinking. This helped me understand how my team worked and how to best communicate according to that particular style.
In reflecting on how to best manage a team that is outside of our discipline or background, we must ask ourselves two questions: How can I best support the creative vision of my staff? And, how as a manager can I cultivate my own creativity?
Here are the 3 main takeaways from leading a global startup team of graphic designers, without a Creative Director on staff and zero prior experience in the design space.
Focus groups are our friends.
The more we label or silo our colleagues based on creative function, we can lose the big picture. I recently piloted inviting a diverse group of team members from across a company to weigh in on creative choices. The lesson? Someone from Finance or Marketing may have valid points on value or scalability that impact the client’s return on investment. Hareem Mannan, former Design Director at Segment puts this into context as she, “partnered with folks all over the org chart, from different product areas, career levels, and growth stages, giving her a close-up lens on some of the biggest challenges facing high-impact design teams.” Plainly said, we must not be myopic when requesting feedback.
Embrace the unconventional — through company culture.
New ways of thinking can infuse a company with a competitive edge while also avoiding creative drain. Innovative approaches to design have similar impacts to forward-thinking business strategies. Artists and designers have an incredible sense for what is derivative, done before, and now overused. Looking to our teams to drive that innovation also builds trust in their artistic expertise and puts our designers at the center of redefining a company’s mission and vision, not only focusing on branding and marketing.
This also means that managers must understand that the constant need to create groundbreaking and disruptive campaigns comes at a cost. Michael Schneider writes in Inc. Magazine, “You’re only as good as your last idea” and leaves us with this key insight, “So how do you come up with your team’s next big idea? This is going to sound counterintuitive, but you don’t. Instead, you need to turn your attention to fostering an environment where employees feel empowered to think creatively at the desk level.” The ultimate goal is to get both direct reports and leaders out of their comfort zone and into the growth zone where vision, meaning, and higher purpose flourish, shown below.
Document everything.
As a golden rule of business, the old adage “get it in writing” has never been more relevant. When leading a team of designers, it is the manager’s responsibility to get the full project scope in the form of a written brief. Every missed detail can cost hours of misused time, cause unnecessary tension between the creative team and the client, and most importantly create teamwide burnout. This applies to nearly every industry and sector, as getting clear on the fine details early saves a lot of time and prevents miscommunication down the line.
In many ways, the very things that spark creativity in a company can end up saving it by leveraging the power of brand stewardship and increasing market differentiation. A team that can thrive in its creative space serves as a force multiplier for all employees in the long run.
Leaning into creative thinking, writing, and problem-solving is the ultimate way of taking a quantum leap at work and in life. In Dr. Price Pritchett’s The Quantum Leap Strategy, he asks us “Are there things you need to stop doing, even though you do them very well, if you want to make the quantum leap from you to you²?” Exponential growth lives on the other side of fear and self-limiting beliefs, it just depends if we are ready to seize it and the success that will soon follow.
