Creative Leadership: Creating the Context ‘The key is to hire amazing people, give them more freedom then you are comfortable with, provide targeted real-time coaching and forgive failure as long as people learn’ (Orin, 2015). The philosophy Laszlo Bock, Senior Vice President of People Operations at Google, uses to let Google employees explore their talents and perform at a top-level (Bulygo, 2013) embodies everything a creative leader should do and be. In my opinion creative leadership is constructing a context to inspire individuals and let them do great and innovative things. Creative leadership is not about showing all the great things you have accomplished, but about what others can accomplish because of how you inspire them to. Creative leadership does not mean telling others what to do so they will follow, but creating a framework that people are willing to follow and use to become leaders as well. Creative leaders do not create followers. They create new leaders. Or as Ronald Reagan, the 40 th president of the United States of America would say: ‘The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things’ (McDermott, 2004). A situation where creative leadership can be seen is when someone steps forward in a discussion to enlighten his or her new idea. This person does not step forward to show everyone how it is done, but to stimulate thinking, to stimulate to do things differently and most important to stimulate other people to be wiling to think and do things differently. At Google for example Laszlo Bock hires people who can see a problem, step in, solve it and then hand over power if necessary so someone else can handle the next challenge. Bock calls this ‘emergent leadership’ (Anders, 2014). Originally leadership can be defined as a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to accomplish a common goal (Northouse, 2010). I believe influencing might not be the right word, since it could have a negative association. Using words as inspiring, motivating and stimulating sound much more positive. Leadership can also mean taking people to places they have never been before (Kane, 2004), which could be done a lot easier when a leader inspires, motivates and stimulates people. This idea also leans a bit more towards what creative leadership means to me; designing a context where individuals will be inspired and are willing to do something differently, original and innovative. The authors of Collective Genius (Hill, Brandeau, Truelove & Lineback, 2014, p.225) agree with me that ‘great leader of innovation see their role not as take-charge direction setters but primarily as creators of a context in which others are willing and able to make innovation happen’. Kouzes & Posner (2014) have a similar definition as well: ‘Leaders help others see that what they are doing is bigger than themselves, something that lifts their moral and motivational levels. That’s what we mean when we say that leaders have to enlist others’ (p. 58). It seems that an explanation of creative leadership can be easily given, but how can creative leadership be seen in practice? According to the THNK Creative Leadership Model (Ball, 2014) a creative leader should act with passion and purpose, apply an explorative mindset, envision a better future, orchestrate creative teams and drive a breakthrough change. This means a creative leader should contribute to a better world, seek inspiration from different sources, use storytelling that moves to act, cast the creative clash and engage the whole system for change. At Google for example freedom is a great good, which can be seen in all of Google’s offices and campuses where they have different play areas and free breakfast, lunch and dinner. The conference rooms and conversation areas are designed in various ways and Google employees get to design their own desks. Besides Google employees are not required to work in their offices, since no one keeps track of who is really there (Stewart, 2013).
Laszlo Bock himself has not owned a desk in 10 years, but instead picked out a couch and comfortable funny looking chair to put in his office (Orin, 2015), which perfectly sets the example for his employees. In order to cope with challenges a creative leader should manage creative abrasion, creative agility and creative resolution, three capabilities used in the Collective Genius Model (Hill, Brandeau, Truelove, Lineback, 2014). Creative abrasion is the ability to create, explore and modify potential solutions trough debate and discourse, mostly because of a cognitive conflict. Diversity is the key, which means people who think differently take part in the process. Creative agility is a trial an error process where ideas are tested and refined through quick experiments, reflection and adjustment. Creative resolution is the ability to make integrative decisions. For example at Google Laszlo Bock hires people from different backgrounds to work at top-level, which exemplifies creative abrasion. Furthermore in his statement mentioned at the beginning of this essay Bock talks about personal coaching and forgiveness, two elements that belong to creative agility. On top of all the elements mentioned before a great management style for a creative leader would be ‘team management’ where a high focus on needs for people and concerns for production are integrated (Blake, Mouton & Bidwell, 1962). In an interview Laszlo Bock said the goal of Google is to innovate as much on the people side as on the product side. Therefore he wrote a book, Work Rules!, to open source what Google has been doing so that others can borrow, tweak and adapt what Google found out that works (Orin, 2015). Laszlo Bock does not only maintain a team management style, but he also provides guidelines for others to try and test his management style. In conclusion creative leadership can be seen as creating a context to inspire individuals and let them do great, original and innovative things. When someone steps forward in a discussion to enlighten his or her idea, this ‘leader’ does not show how it is done, but stimulates thinking and doing things differently. To apply creative leadership there are a number of tools a leader can use. For example a (creative) leader can take a look at the THNK Creative leadership Model to know how to act with passion and purpose, apply an explorative mindset, envision a better future, orchestrate creative teams and drive breakthrough change. Furthermore a creative leader should manage creative abrasion, creative agility and creative resolution according to the Collective Genius Model. Lastly a leader should maintain a team management style where a high focus on needs for people and concerns for production are integrated. A great example of a creative leader is Laszlo Bock, who makes sure the employees at Google perform at a top-level because of his management style. Bock has not owned a desk in over 10 years, which he stimulates for his employees as well. He hires people from different backgrounds, talks about personal coaching and forgiveness, cultivates a team management style and wrote a book about what they do at Google for others to learn form it, adapt it or borrow it. Laszlo Bock does not create followers. He creates new leaders. And he is proud of those new leaders as he said in an interview: ‘I collect the business card of people who used to work on my People Operations team that have gone on to be heads of HR at other companies, and keep them in little display cases’. Bock’s philosophy is one many leaders can learn from.
Sources Anders, G. (2014). Google’s People Chief, Laszlo Bock, Explains How To Hire Right. Retrieved from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2014/10/21/googles-people-chief-laszlo-bock-explainshow-to-hire-right/ Ball, R. (2014). The Paradoxes of Creative Leadership. Retrieved from: http://www.thnk.org/insights/the-paradoxes-of-creative-leadership/ Blake, R. R., Mouton, J. S., Bidwell, A. C. (1962). Managerial grid. Advanced Management – Office Executive, Vol. 1(9), 12 – 15. Bulygo, Z. (2013). Inside Google’s Culture of Success and Employee Happiness. Retrieved from: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/googles-culture-of-success/ Hill, L. A., Brandeau, G., Truelove, E., Lineback, K. (2014). Collective Genius: The Art and Practive of Leading Innovation. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press. Kane, M. J. (2004). Leadership – Today’s Requirements and Tomorrow’s Challenges. Retrieved from http://www.executiveevolution.com/leadershipsummary.htm Kouzes, J. M., Posner, B. Z. (2014). The Student Leadership Challenge: Five Practices for Exemplary Leaders. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. McDermott, T. (2004). Ronal Reagen Remembered. Retrieved from: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ronald-reagan-remembered/ Northouse, P. G. (2010). Leadership: theory and practice. Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Orin, A. (2015). I’m Laszlo Bock, Head of Google’s People Ops and This Is How I Work. Retrieved from: http://lifehacker.com/im-laszlo-bock-head-of-googles-people-ops-and-this-is-1713435446? sidebar_promotions_icons=testingoff&utm_expid=6686609067.e9PWeE2DSnKObFD7vNEoqg.1&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.nl%2F Stewart, J. B. (2013). Looking for a Lesson in Google’s Perks. Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/16/business/at-google-a-place-to-work-and-play.html?_r=0 Extra reading list Sources I read but did not make the ‘cut’ Brougher, S. J., Rantanen, E.M. (2009). Creativity and Design: Creativity’s new definition and its relationship to design. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, Vol. 53, No. 10, 605 – 609. doi: 10.1177/154193120905301005 Connor, A. (2002). Broadening the Definition of Leadership: Active Citizens as Leaders of Change. Mental Health Review Journal, Vol. 7, Issue 4, 15 – 17. Kirkpatrick, S. A., Locke, E. A. (1991). Leadership: Do Traits Matter? The Executive, Vol. 5, No.2, 48 – 60. Kotter, J. P. (1990). What leaders really do. Harvard Business Review, 68, 103 – 11.
Kouzes, J. M., Posner, B.Z. (2005). Leading in Cynical Times. Journal of Management Inquiry, Vol. 14, No. 4, 357 – 364. doi: 10.1177/1056493605280221
Appendix THNK Creative Leadership Model (Ball, 2014)
Collective Genius Model (Hill, Brandeau, Truelove, Lineback, 2014)
Managerial Grid (Blake, Mouton & Bindwell, 21962)