Introduction
A culture of creativity is vital for organizations as it boosts their innovative potential. There are a number of leadership traits that enhance and inhibit creativity.
Discussion of Leadership Traits
A leader’s abilities to ensure his team’s optimal level of creativity are focused on improving the creative potential, removing distractions, and expanding limits. Divergent thinking skills are one of the traits that are usually omitted, but it is vital for releasing a creative power and changing the team with it (Jiajun, G., Gonzales R., and Dilley, A., 2016). The next significant leadership trait is the ability to find the balance between control and freedom (Ezzat et al.,2016). It is known that attempts to free creative energy sometimes lead to chaos, while the opposite conceives the limitation, so counterbalancing is vital. Finding and accepting unlikely perspectives is a leader’s responsibility, as it is their work to ensure the offered innovation is realistic enough and conceives new opportunities (Miller, 2018).
It is necessary to mention the leader of the most innovative company “Apple,” discussing the traits of a leader that enhance creativity. Steve Jobs established the method of managing employees called “leading by example” (Steve Jobs’s Leadership Style and What We Can Learn From It, 2020). It implies that he has a mentor ability, which enabled him to successfully promote and inhibit creativity, showing his team the techniques and opportunities, teaching them, and expanding the limits of what was claimed to be “impossible.”
Leading creatively always implies listening to unexpected ideas. It is vital for leadership ability to be a great listener and always well-consider the pros and cons of what is offered (Beltran, 2020). Leaders often micro-manage a lot, which leads to the deterioration of employees’ imagination abilities. It is an important trait to not interrupt the creative process without necessity (Smith, 2015). The ability to make the team function as a single mechanism usually implies the skills to bridge boundaries such as geographic, cultural, and organizational ones (Pialat, 2020) (The Complete Creative Leadership Guide, n.d.) Finally, the great ability is to encourage attempts and support failure to ensure the team is not frustrated with unsuccessful innovations and is prepared to try again (Forbes Coaches Council, 2017).
Reference List
Beltran, J. M. (2020) What are the most important qualities of a creative leader? Web.
Directive Feedbacks on Creativity’, HAL. Web.
Ezzat, H. et al. (2016) ‘Leadership-driven Ideation: The Cognitive Effects of Forbes Coaches Council (2017) 15 Ways Leaders Can Promote Creativity In The Workplace. Web.
Jiajun, G., Gonzales R., and Dilley, A. (2016) ‘Creativity and Leadership in Organizations: A Literature Review’, Creativity Theories, 3(1), pp. 127-151. Web.
Miller, L. (2018) The Importance of Creative Leadership. Web.
Pialat, G. (2020) Using Creative Leadership Skills to Lead Teams Effectively. Web.
Smith, M. M. (2015) How Leadership Behavior is Squashing Innovation and Creativity? Web.
Steve Jobs’s Leadership Style and What We Can Learn From It (2020) Web.
The Complete Creative Leadership Guide (n.d.) Web.