The perception of what it takes to be great leader changes with the times.
In a recent study, IBM asked 1,500 CEOs in 60 countries what they considered to be today’s most important leadership quality. The answer, creativity. Roughly 60% said creativity was the most important leadership quality, while 52% cited integrity, and 35% named global thinking.
For many leaders, becoming more creative is a challenge. Their creativity is usually not the quality that got them to the corner office in the first place. Instead, they’re most often known for their decisiveness, their business acumen, their people skills, their drive, or their history of achievement.
If you're an organizational leader and want to be more creative, try creating a culture of trust. What does trust have to do with creativity? Here's the link:
First, when leaders trust themselves, trust their boards of directors, and trust their relationships with their customers, they feel much safer taking the risks associated with creativity. Leaders feel more free if they are less likely to be judged solely on failed risks, which happens easily when there is an absence of high trust.
Second, would you rather invest in a company in which the CEO demonstrates high creativity, or would you rather invest in a company in which the CEO has created a culture of trust that has unleashed the creativity of all of the employees? By creating a culture of trust, leaders create a stronger sense of team. With a stronger sense of team, employees not only feel more free to create, but they want to create because they are more emotionally invested in everyone's success.
CEOs place a high value on creativity today. To develop your creativity, ask yourself these questions: What's keeping you from being more creative? What are you afraid of? What don’t you trust?
"Without trust there is no risk-taking and without risk-taking there is no innovation...if you want to get more people to take the necessary risk to innovate, just put more trust in the room." — Dov Seidman (from The World is Flat)
