10 Ways Leaders Can Boost Their Team’s Creativity And Productivity
And why it is essential for success in businesses
How do leaders boost their team’s creativity and productivity?
Leadership is a broader term that means many things for many people in many various situations. But before diving into what leadership is or a leader, let me first tell who is not a leader.
A leader is not a manager, commander, or authoritative person.
Let me explain.
A manager’s job is to execute the plan, monitor activities, hire people, solve problems, measure a program, or fire someone. Similarly, a commander may command you to do something, and you have to do it even if you hate him. He may not cost you to still follow him. An authoritative person may pressure you to do something, and you will definitely do or face the worst.
But do you think using coercion and force can make someone productive? Can a business thrive where workers feel unsafe and insecure? Can someone use creativity under a manager who is always threatening to fire them?
You know the answer.
Such an environment is highly stagnant that kills the creative initiatives of the employees. It doesn’t yield in productivity. Use of force may keep things in order superficially, but inwardly, everything will be empty.
Then who is a leader?
A manager’s work is to look after things and manage them. A leader leads people. This is the difference. A manager can’t be a leader, but a leader can be a manager.
Although leadership has been defined by many writers, businesspersons, executives, and political leaders, I like the definition given by Kevin Kruse. He defines leadership as:
“Leadership is a process of social influence, which maximizes the efforts of others, towards the achievement of a goal.”
He emphasizes a few factors in his definition that are pivotal for an effective leader to boost productivity.
- Leadership is not about authority or command. Leaders use the power of social influence. Social influence means a leader is charismatic, human-oriented, has a high understanding of the context and personnel. He is motivating and encouraging. He inspires others to do what he wants them to do.
- Leadership works on others to increase their effort and productivity. In a business organization, a leader is not involved in the actual production. But every action and creation stems from his activity, behavior, and vision.
- Leadership achieves the goal with a positive outcome. Leaders not only lead people, but they lead them to the achievement of a shared goal.
Why is creativity important for more productivity and success in a business organization?
Every market is highly saturated, and you face intense competition in almost everything nowadays. You have to be creative to survive in the market. Creativity and innovation are the hallmarks of survivability in any field, not just in a business.
You have to devise ways and come up with products that people would love to buy and use. A product is not always acceptable to people. After sometimes, customers need a modified and a new thing. Or at least to have something in addition to provide a unique taste.
That’s why Starbucks started offering sippy cup lids by replacing straws. They also provided a shot of pumpkin spice.
You need to keep the customer’s interest alive in your product to climb to the success ladder. If you remain the same for a more extended period without offering customers a different or new value, they will not stay the same. They will change as they are friends of innovations and change.
That’s why creativity is necessary for productivity. When you add a fresh taste to your services, people will flock towards your product, and you will need to cash that flow, as it will wane soon.
So, you have to be quick in executing your creative plans to get someone else’s success with reach there before you. And this creativity comes into business when leaders are creative and supportive when they provide enough space for their employees to experiment with creativity and accept their errors in the process without firing them, but encouraging them to start all over again.
If a leader is not innovative and creative, his team won’t be creative. You can inspire creativity but can’t force it. You can lead a creative team or pick a team and make them creative if you are creative.
A creative leader is innovative and has social influence. He is charismatic, inclusive, has excellent communication skills, is open to feedback, can communicate his vision clearly without barriers or ambiguity, leaves his team to realize his dreams through their own ways, less interfere in his teamwork, and plan the whole setup of the process of the organization to achieve business success.
Here are the 10 ways leaders can boost their team’s creativity and productivity to embark upon a successful business venture.
10. Give everyone a chance to speak their mind on important issues.
Leaders often ignore the low-level employees and don’t give them a chance to speak their minds. This attitude makes them feel alienated, and they only work there for the money. They don’t feel any attachment to the organization or business. Such an attitude also affects their productivity because they don’t use their abilities to engage in the productions creatively, which results in low output or faulty production.
An effective leader is inclusive. He seeks everyone’s ideas without keeping their hierarchical level in mind, evaluates them, and chooses the best alternatives.
According to Robert Sutton, a professor at Stanford University, hierarchical structures stifle creative ideas as low-level employees can’t reach their voice to the high ups. They almost always remain silent in meetings or are not invited to share their views regarding specific issues.
Professor Sutton says if you want to increase an employee’s productivity, provide them with an inclusive environment where he is valued and supported. They should also be given a bit of autonomy to use their creativity and to use innovative ways to expedite the growth of the production.
9. Ask questions and welcome feedback.
If you want to engage your employees creatively in your business, ask them questions about the progress and welcome their feedback. Share information with all the employees that are vital to the growth and success of the company. Let them know what’s going on in the business organization.
8. Encourage diversity and inclusion.
A leader who has no opposition is not a leader. Again, a leader who can’t tolerate opposition is also not a leader. If you want to make your business or any other organization a success, seek diversity and avoid homogeneity. I mean to avoid people who always flatter you and are limited only to yes-man-ship.
Look for people who gave a variety of ideas and insight. Look for experts who know how to do something. Look for people who share the excitement and invest themselves in their work. Look for people who correct and give you honest information; no matter how hard it is to hear it, it will provide ground to know your position.
Once you have such people in the team, let them do their job. Avoid unnecessary meddling in their work if they know how to do something.
7. Give the correct assignment to everyone.
We often see that an employee is too skillful in a particular sphere of business. Still, because of his education qualification or other considerations, he receives those assignments which don’t interest him or use his capabilities. This approach leads to unproductivity.
Let the right person do the job. If you give your employees the jobs they can do well, they won’t feel overwhelmed or bored. Instead, they will use their hidden talents to increase your business growth.
6. Allow an employee to take their time and provide them with resources.
Creativity doesn’t come into anything in just a matter of minutes or days. It takes time to come up with an innovative product or plan. It takes time to do experiments, evaluate something, know its effects, pros and cons, and worth in competition, etc.
But all that creative process doesn’t time alone, and it requires resources. You have to spend money also which converts into material and men too. You have to put your product to the test, which definitely takes time to evaluate it perfectly. Still, there can be an error of judgement or taste.
So, an effective leader gives time to his followers to complete the innovative process with satisfaction. He doesn’t force them to do everything in a hurry or put restrictions on them.
This gives a boost to the creativity of the employees, and it realizes in the increased productivity.
Yet too much relaxation can also lead to unproductivity which should also be avoided.
5. Resist the urge to micromanage
A leader doesn’t micromanage. An effective leader leaves his team to do things in their own way. He only provides insights, visions, and the desired outcomes. Communicate them clearly to your followers and resist micromanaging their every activity.
If you manage everything, you become a headache to them. You stifle the initiatives of your team to do anything as they will look to you before doing something.
You can hire people whom you trust will do their job and leave the rest to them. This environment calls for the creativity of the employees that result in quality products.
4. Publicly encourage the efforts of your team.
You should often check the progress, but not too much. Ask questions about the happening of the things and achievements in a way that shows that you take complete interest in their work. Show surprise and appreciation when they show their work.
Don’t dominate the situation. Consider yourself that you don’t do anything. Let your team members do their job. When your team shows you their work progress, appreciate it. Encourage your team members publically. Say it aloud that you are proud to be the leader of such a great team. A little appreciation makes employees work more productively.
Show them they are essential to the growth and wellbeing of the business. Employees should feel that the organization is standing behind them firmly.
3. Don’t take their credit.
I have seen many bosses take all the credit. The employees are neglected and depreciated. This devalues the employees who actually produce value in the business. When a company has a boss that takes all to himself, he soon declines.
On the other hand, a leader appreciates his team members for the success he has achieved. He doesn’t take the credit. He is always inclusive and often negates taking any credit for himself.
This attitude makes the employees respect their leader even more. They are willingly put more effort into their work to make the business thrive more speedily. Giving credit to those who work makes them realize that their creativity and talents are not wasted. They feel proud of themselves and invest themselves physically and emotionally in the business.
2. Be the master of ideas.
A leader is a visionary and insightful. He understands more than his employees. He sees a much broader picture than his team members because he is the driving force behind those activities.
When the employees give him ideas about improving a particular product or bring about something creatively, he modifies those ideas and products and fits them in the broader picture.
He guides and shows them the futuristic picture of their scattered visions in a more unified vision that works towards a collective goal.
1. Do not be afraid of failures.
A visionary leader doesn’t afraid of failures. He is always ready for such a situation and sees multiple possibilities beforehand. He allows his team members to work freely in their creative mood, and if anything goes wrong or doesn’t work, he doesn’t regret or fire people but appreciates and encourages them for more tries.
He eases the fears of failures of his employees by encouraging them to experiment with new things. He learns from the failures and shares that information with others. He recognizes their efforts without thinking of any loss.
Final thoughts
The productivity and creativity of a business depends on its leadership. Not only business but every organization’s success and failures revolve around leaders because leaders are the binding forces in an organization, who bring together the diverse ambitions and visions of employees into a unifying whole.
It is the leader who directs all the activities of an organization, whether business or administrative, into attaining a common goal. But leaders can’t do that alone.
A person who is not followed or heeded to is not a leader. A leader is a person who inspires his team member through his conduct, vision, knowledge, accommodative nature, power of visualization, and most of all, though standing firmly behind his team in success as well as in failures.
Such a leader instills a love of work in his employees. They work with passion and strive hard to maximize the productivity of a business. He never alienates them from the process but integrates them into it according to their skills and aptitudes.
A leader allows his subordinates to come up with new ideas, listen to them, give them time to experiment with new things, and appreciate them publically with complete honesty. He never takes their credit by only mentioning “I,” but he refers to everyone by saying “WE.” A leader doesn’t consider his team members inferior but companions to tread toward a single and unified goal.
Such a leader instills creativity in employees, polishes their personalities, and boosts their productivity.
