“The Accidental Creative” is about anyone who uses their mind to solve problems, create things, or innovate in their day to day work. So many leaders are creatives as they develop strategies, innovate new methodologies/processes, and design new inventions. 

This first blog post on this book focuses on the creative blocks or how being creative every single day can be so challenging. Todd Henry, the author, says that many things get in the way of creativity - not taking care of yourself, overworking yourself, not having enough structure, and not having a rhythm.

Creatives always seem to need to focus on the balance between possibility and pragmatism by balancing taking big risks, focusing on what they truly want instead of what is safe in the short term. This can lead to impacts to their creativity.

This leads to the following side effects of not maximizing our creativity:

• Unnecessary complexity
  
• Fear
  
• Unclear Objectives
  
• Opacity
  

All of this leads to dissonance or things just not adding up for a creative mind. All of this saps the creative’s energy leading to unfulfilled goals and desires.

What is sapping your energy right now? Are you stuck in doing work that is more pragmatic than possible? Do you have unclear objectives of what you really want to achieve this year? Are you stuck in fear of failure or fear of success to truly go after what you desire?

Next week’s post will focus on tools you can use to get out your creative rut as a leader.

Betsy Myers’ book “Take the Lead” continues discussing major leadership traits with the following four components:

Clarity - Betsy Myers says creating a compelling vision that everyone in the organization can rally around is a key quality in good leaders. She says during Obama’s first presidential campaign the rallying cry was “Winning Iowa.” Knowing that vision all of the volunteers working on the campaign could then make decisions about every action they were taking - was it working towards that goal or not? When leaders provide clarity they provide a path for success for everyone following them, especially when they are able to communicate that vision effectively.

Collaboration - Ms. Myers says that the best solutions and lessons often come from seeking out differing perspectives than your own. A great leader is confident enough in themselves to ask for other’s opinions, knowing that they won’t always agree with his own. True collaboration means getting buy in from others in your organization, vendors, and customers. It means truly communicating what is going on in the organization even when it is tough (e.g. - during lay offs and restructuring). It is knowing that doing things together is what really pays off in the end rather than being a lone soldier.

Learning - a good leader is one who is continually learning and growing in order to become and remain a master in their field. She discusses Captain Sullenberger and how he landed the plane in the Hudson River in New York and saved so many lives as a result. When talking about it later he said it was because he had trained his whole life for this by continually learning about his trade and his field. She says you can also do this by getting mentors or being a mentor to others so that you are always learning.

Courage - finally Ms. Myers says the last trait of a great leader is Courage. “Courage is about pushing through our fears to live our most authentic life and do what we believe is right.” To live courageously takes a willingness to take risks, to try new things, and to go after what you are truly passionate about in life. It is about following your heart and demanding excellence in yourself and others. 

Are you putting these qualities and traits to use in your organization? I truly believe that these are important qualities for a leader to possess in order to be successful and have other people want to follow you. Which one of these traits can you practice in the next couple of weeks?

“Take the Lead” is a leadership book written by Betsy Myers, the sister of Dee Dee Myers (former press secretary under Bill Clinton), and a political powerhouse in her own right. She worked in the SBA on women’s issues in the Clinton administration, was an executive at the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University, and was the COO of President Obama’s campaign in 2008. 

From all of her insights in politics, academia, and business Ms. Myers wrote a thoughtful, articulate book about the seven qualities she sees in top leaders. In this post I will focus on the first three:

Authenticity - Betsy Myers says that people who are true to themselves, do what brings them true joy, and are expressing who they really are resonate with others. She quotes Warren Bennis (a leadership guru) who says, “People begin to be leaders at the moment when they decide for themselves how to be.” These people draw others to them, “freak out with joy” at what they are doing, and are self-aware about what motivates them and what is important in their lives.

Connection - The second trait she sees in leaders are ones who are able to connect with other people. They are ones who can build strong relationships, make others feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves, and are generally curious and generous with others. She also says fostering a sense of connection creates a powerful force within a group to get things done.

Respect - “Respect means being willing to listen and let others have voice, even when it might be inconvenient, difficult, or painful to do so.” Leaders understand that everyone will have a unique perspective and even if they don’t agree with the other person’s opinion allowing that opinion to be heard is important. Often it is letting other’s feel heard that earns their respect and their willingness to come together and work through things even if there was a conflict in the beginning. Respect can be a powerful influencer in building trust. She uses the example of President Obama telling her he wanted to run a campaign filled with respect.

Overall these are important leadership traits outlined by Betsy Myers. They are more of the heart based leadership traits that are not often talked about in traditional leadership books, but as more women are coming into power, what I call more typically “feminine” leadership traits are becoming more recognized as valuable and important. I am happy that Betsy Myers is recognizing the importance of these traits and calling them out in her book.

Do you demonstrate authenticity, connection, and respect as a leader in your organization? If not how can you bring more of these more feminine traits into your business?

Although Steve Jobs was legendary in many ways for his creativity, innovation, hard work, and dedication he could also be a hard leader to work for, opinionated and sometimes mean to the people around him. In short he was a human being with both strengths and weaknesses. 

From Walter Isaacson’s book “Steve Jobs” here are some leadership lessons that Steve Jobs in my opinion could have learned:

1. Emotional Intelligence - from the biography on Steve Jobs  it seems like he had a hard time managing his emotions. He would either burst out in anger or be distant and emotionless. Either way of reacting to emotional situations can be destructive and hard to deal with for the people around him. Emotionally intelligent people can manage their emotions as well as gauge the emotional context of others which can be a great way to relate to others in an organization.

2. Empathy - Steve Jobs had a hard time being empathetic with others. He would be in his “Reality Distortion Field” and have an idea of how things could be without taking into account how others felt about it. In this way he sometimes pushed people to be better than they thought they could, but he often pushed people away as well. Empathy plays a strong role in understanding other people and creating rapport and trust with them which is key in building lasting and strong relationships.

3.  Creating an environment where people feel valued - in the book Steve Jobs was portrayed as someone who would yell at others, invoke fear in them, and communicate directly that he thought people’s ideas or products were stupid. A good leadership lesson is to treat people with respect which in turn inspires them to want to be better. Steve Jobs could have learned this lesson a bit better.

Steve Jobs had so many good qualities and yet had some key leadership traits that could have been enhanced. Overall history is already writing about him as a genius and a legend overshadowing the lessons he needed to still learn, but as a leader in your organization you can learn from his strengths as well as his weaknesses.