Why Creativity and Imagination Matter in Leadership

When leaders think about tools they could use to be highly successful, creativity and imagination are not typically at the top of that list. Instead, there tends to be things such as intelligence, perseverance, character, and dedication. These are also important skills, but without creativity and imagination they are limited.

Using Creativity to Solve Leadership Challenges

For example, if you are leading a team and you are faced with a major obstacle. Let’s say that your supply chain suddenly cannot meet your needs and this impacts on your ability to produce your biggest sales generating product. What can you do? Well, you can certainly go to market and see if there are other vendors who can provide what you need. However, if one vendor is struggling many times their competitors are as well. Or it may come with lower quality and higher pricing. What then?

Asking Different Questions

Creativity is critical because it causes us to be curious about deeper issues in a given situation, and to ask different questions. For example, instead of just asking how we can obtain a certain product, maybe we ask, “Is there another component that would be even better?” Or, “Could we change the product in such a way to improve it and potentially eliminate the need for this component?” Or, “Should we consider making this essential component internally to gain greater control over production if it is essential to our operation?”

Reimagining How We Work

Creativity allows us to reimagine how to accomplish something. Instead of solving the short-term issue and only considering the factors that are presented at that moment, we consider how things could be different or better. The answer might be that what we are doing is still the best solution. The key for leaders is not to assume that what they are doing is the best approach. Often when you step back and look at something with fresh eyes you see things that otherwise would have gone unnoticed.

Creating Space for Creativity and New Ideas

The challenge for many leaders is creating space for creativity and reimagining their work. This process of looking at your organization and working through a new lens requires regular practice of asking questions such as:

• If I were starting with a blank slate today, how would I design the organization to be highly successful?
• What new trends could inform our decisions moving forward?
• What areas are not being met currently in our market and how could we begin to meet those?

Developing More Creative Leadership Solutions

Successful leaders will invest the time and energy to regularly develop more creative and imaginative solutions to existing and future needs.