Creativity Through Leadership: How Leaders Build a Culture of Innovation

Creativity in the workplace is either encouraged or suppressed by the culture of that workplace. Culture in the workplace is how things are done on a day-to-day basis. Leadership controls that.  So if your culture is to come to work on time, keep your head down, mouth shut, get your work done, and repeat daily, then creativity may never raise its head for you.

At the same time, if you come to work and feel that you have some importance and what you do matters—and that innovation and growth are rewarded in some fashion—then chances are creativity is your daily companion.

Why Creativity Through Leadership Matters

The mistake that many organizations make is thinking that creativity is only for companies like Google, Microsoft, or Apple—and that factories or assembly-line companies don’t need something “silly” like creativity. Let me ask you a question: Do you think the Ford assembly line today looks anything like it did when Henry rolled his first car off the line? Of course not. And probably no company is doing it exactly the same as when they first started.

When leadership is pushing for excellence and consistently asking, “How can we be better?” then creativity through leadership is always the result.

What Love Has to Do With Creativity

Leadership Behaviors That Spark Growth

So what does love have to do with creativity? Let’s first distinguish love the emotion (I love my spouse, my car, my job, etc.) from love the behavior.

Gallup conducted a huge survey on the behaviors people expect from their leaders, and these eight rose to the top:

• Honesty (No. 1 by far)

• Patience

• Kindness

• Selflessness

• Forgiveness

• Humility

• Commitment

• Respect

These are the behaviors of love in the workplace. They are also the behaviors that—when properly applied—result in growth in both teams and individuals.

Too often, people in leadership feel that they should be served, while true leadership requires you to serve those under you. That service is designed not only to increase performance, but also to build the kind of relationship that leads your people to ask questions like:

• How can I make things better?

• How can I make myself better?

And I would suspect every organization wants that.

Are You Leading With Creativity and Growth in Mind?

As good leaders do, please take some time to reflect on your leadership style. Ask yourself:

• How often am I using the behaviors of love with my people?

• Are my people better today than when I first took leadership?

• And maybe most importantly—am I better today than when I first took leadership?

Creativity through leadership is about new ways of solving problems, new ways of looking at things, and new ways of judging processes, procedures, and habits in the workplace. As I said before, leadership controls culture—and they reflect on each other synergistically. It is a rare occurrence to find a great culture with poor or absent leadership, and the opposite is equally true.

Creativity Needs a Leader to Activate It

Is the culture at your workplace creative? Can you ask your people every day to find a better way to solve a problem or improve a process? Are you doing it yourself?

Creativity needs a jumpstart and an accountability facilitator. That comes from the top down and is the responsibility and duty of every leader.

So be that change agent. Start that new procedure. Get in the game. And if someone says to you, “Are you better today than when you first took leadership?” you can say, without hesitation: ABSOLUTELY!

If this message challenged you to reflect on the culture you’re building, keep strengthening your leadership foundation with our microlearning tools. Explore practical, actionable resources inside the Learning Hub.