My previous column called for creative leadership to cope with complexity and dynamism in business. But how can we move beyond traditional leadership development methods and turn numbers-oriented managers into creative leaders?

What are the objectives?

Creative leadership development should enable those leaders to be creatively productive every day, and to easily and reliably produce meaningful creative outputs when needed. This ability is essential to being a credible creative leader or successful creative entrepreneur.

Can every leader become a creative leader?

In general, the answer is yes, but some people will find this transformation more difficult than others. At our innovation company Thinkergy, before we accept someone into our creative leadership development program, we first test their mindset and cognitive preferences. The results help us identify those who are unlikely to benefit from such training, and, for those who are suitable, the mindset and skills they need to acquire in order to succeed.

How can you develop creative leaders?

At Thinkergy, we teach leaders how to learn and practice the creative mindsets, skills and strategies that have proven to be successful. The program is based on psychological research and other data on such creative geniuses and leaders as Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, and Richard Branson. We identified the key mindsets and cognitive skills that set these creative top achievers apart, so that they can be adopted and adapted by creative leadership candidates. Creative leadership is first and foremost a question of mindset and only secondarily one of cognitive skill.

How to develop the mindset of a creative leader?

Becoming a creative business leader begins with self-examination:

• What do you believe in? What do you value? You must become aware of your belief system so you can test those beliefs, purge any that hurt you, and replace them with ones that help. You also need to examine your core values, those principles that guide your life. Once you’ve done these things, you can see if your thinking is compatible with creativity and innovation. For example, if you strongly believe in ‘efficiency’ and your core values include ‘security,’ ‘thriftiness’ and ‘order,’ then you’re a good candidate to lead a manufacturing plant, but a poor one for creative leadership.

• Who are you? Creative leadership requires self-confidence about your abilities combined with the empathy and humility needed to appreciate others and their abilities.

• In what environment do you work? Creative leadership requires moving from a competitive management paradigm to an abundant leadership paradigm. Managers fight to gain a bigger share of the available pie, but creative leaders find ways to make the pie bigger or even create a totally new pie by finding opportunities that others have missed.

• Is your mind open? It’s essential to transcend the judgmental manager’s mindset and instead adopt an open, curious beginner’s mind. This will let you find and exploit opportunities with a positive, playful “can-do” attitude. Psychologists say that creative achievers have “problem sensitivity,” the ability to notice what’s wrong or missing and then turn that need into an opportunity.

• Do you love what you do? Creative leaders must be passionate about their work. They are often on a mission to advance a cause that they see as important. If you’re not wholly committed to what you do, if your primary motivations are money and career advancement, you’re unlikely to be a great creative leader.

Once you have examined yourself, and determined your suitability as a creative leader, then you are ready to start acquiring the cognitive skills you will need.

How to develop the cognitive skills of a creative leader?

We seek to re-awaken the creativity we all had as children, while preserving the analytical skills we have as adults. The good news is that creative thinking is a skill; and as with all skills, creativity can be developed through practice:

• Creative exercises, challenges and puzzles can help develop fluency and originality in creative thinking.

• Different exercises develop imagination, of which Albert Einstein said both, “Imagination is more important than knowledge,” and, “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.” Creative leaders use their imagination to examine possible scenarios and outcomes, enabling them to be prepared.

• Special exercises make potential creative leaders more mindful, aware and focused. It’s all very well to imagine a better future, but that future is created today.

• Combined physical-cognitive exercises help candidates notice how body states and postures affect thinking, and demonstrate that physical exercises can enhance creativity.

Are you ready to become a creative leader like Steve Jobs, Walt Disney or Thomas Edison? Are you willing to be thought odd or abnormal? Can you fight for the extraordinary against the ordinary? To be the nail that sticks out, the maverick, independent of the herd? Steve Jobs said, “Innovation distinguishes between leader and follower.” Are you ready to really innovate, stop following, and start leading?

© Dr. Detlef Reis 2012. This article was published in parallel in the Bangkok Post under the title “Every leader should study world’s creative achievers” on 25 October 2012.