What are the essential skills, qualities and awareness' that you wish
you could magically clone and implant into your company's future
leaders?
The qualities are often silently embedded into the vision of a
companies founders, their successful CEO, creative directors or
leaders.
KNOW YOUR TEAM
Lacking the tools, time or sometimes simply the inclination to develop
the next generation of a companies leaders often causes creative
companies to
rely on corporate leadership "instruments" and "assessments" that are
expensive, time consuming, boring and ultimately ineffective for
creative
companies, departments or teams.
Creative companies are led, managed and inspired differently. Its
employees are not motivated exclusively by money. For employees of
creative
companies, what matters is their ability to do good work,
collaboratively with other creative people, in an environment where
creativity is
understood
and respected.
KNOW HOW TO MANAGE DEADLINES
Even the most ethereal of creative artists understand and respect
deadlines. But when they are working in an environment of seemingly
arbitrary
milestones, inane redundancies, and management inefficiencies, creative
employees will flounder, lose interest and before long move to a
company
where
they feel better appreciated and understood.
KNOW CREATIVE PROCESS
Yet the challenge of the modern entertainment company is how to manage
creative talent in a way that allows them to do their best work and to
have an
entire team's efforts focused into a symphonic crescendo of original
creation, finely focused by a creative leader, into a successful
product that
will be funneled into the market place at the right time in the right
way.
Developing leadership talent for creative companies must start with an appreciation of the creative process.
Also essential are having both a clear vision of what the product will
be, and the ability to articulate it, even though it will probably
evolve.
KNOW YOUR BUSINESS
You must know your core creative and business values before you
enter "The den of constant creation and change" or you will be lost
forever, and
worst of all, dismissed as simply a random, clueless "suit."
The best creative leaders know what matters and what doesn't. Know
which battles to fight and which to give in on. And even know when to
give in when
they're right and the team is wrong (but may need to learn it for
themselves.)
FEEDBACK, PLEASE?
The best creative leaders know how to give supportive feedback when the
process is veering off course. Sometimes they can tell right away and
sometimes it's impossible to tell until later. But knowing when, and
how, to pull the plug on a creative exploration is the master's stroke.
KNOW YOUR SELF
Finding the right balance of compassion, sensitivity and certainty
requires a leader to be grounded in an understanding of their own
strengths, their
own vulnerabilities, and their own aesthetic, business and market
grounded ness.
Confident and knowledgeable enough about the creative process at hand,
knowing the language and customs of the creative working, and when to
listen
to, and fight for their own intuitions are seldom discussed, rarely
well articulated awareness's that the great creative leaders have.
They are respected, appreciated and loved. Their creative teams will
work their hardest to make them happy if they trust that their work
will be
appreciated and their process understood.
KNOW LEADERSHIP
Some of these qualities come naturally to some. Some come through
training in creative disciplines, some through apprenticing a great
creative
leaders.
But the essential skills of creative, collaborative leadership can be learned, experienced and transmitted.
Whenever you're ready.
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Ruth
http://www.infrared-sauna-spot.info
Posted by: Ruth | January 04, 2009 at 06:46 PM