I noticed the unease in the room. The resistance. Utter discomfort.
I could relate. I’d like to think I’ve outgrown my own discomfort with creativity, and was a tad relieved to find I’m not alone.
It was our leadership cohort Module 3 (this time for future leaders) Everyone was quite at ease working through group through different types of thinking. We covered systems thinking, analytical thinking, strategic and even critical thinking.
But there is a reason that this part of the module only receives 15% of the attention for the day. Most of us have been rewarded for these forms of thinking since childhood. They have been praised and rewarded, embedded in education, tertiary study and the world of work. They are also the types of thinking that often gets leaders into roles of power and responsibility.
The difficulty is that these types of thinking stay polished, rational and in control. They rely on what we already know, what has worked before, what we can prove, predict or defend.
And that works well enough when the world around us is stable and change happens at a steady pace. When we have something in the past that serves as a useful benchmark, or something in the future that we can feel reasonably certain about.
I doubt you’ll describe our current world as stable and steady paced.
So, after the thinking styles that feel familiar and legitimate, there is usually a break. Critical thinking is a good place to pause, because even there people begin to realise how much work remains. Observing our own thoughts, reasoning and emotions with objectivity is no easy feat.
Then comes the part many powerful, highly competent leaders often dread: Creative thinking.
We put a table of art materials in front of them and invited them to play. Build, design, colour in, play
The atmosphere changes almost instantly. They look at one another as if to say, “That’s enough now. This is nonsense. I have real work to do.” Some even act defiant.
For some, the idea of dealing with an irate client seems far more appealing than staying in the room and being asked to create something with paper, paint, glue or coloured pens. These are people who can lead teams, manage budgets, deliver strategies and hold difficult conversations. But ask them to play, and suddenly they are exposed.
Yet they do it.
They design, build and create. And then they present what they have made, often with an unexpected and rather wonderful sense of pride.
They are not there to produce a great art piece. That was never the point. What matters is what happens inside of them, and inside of the room.
The energy shifts. Vastly.
People who had been serious, frowning and slightly guarded become lighter. There is humour. Warmth. Laughter. Occasionally, a little emotion. They stop taking themselves quite so seriously and begin to discover something about themselves, and about one another, that was not available to them while they were relying only on the thinking styles they already knew.
The neuroscience for leadership tells us that its’ this sense of openness, even wonder, that provides a blank canvas for true innovation, problem solving and critical thinking.
For years, Leigh Johnson and I have been determined to offer leadership development that moves beyond insight – into behaviour. We’ve all been there, when we’re in the workshop, or the safe container of an extended course – but how different it is when we’re are back in the pressure of real work, faced with real life issues, uncertainty, conflict, people, AI, tough decisions. Before we know it we’ve defaulted to what we know. The old patterns, the old behaviours – some with a small tweak but still, constraining our own potential.
Leigh brings a depth of learning and development expertise that understands something many leadership interventions miss: people do not grow simply because they understand a concept. They change when an experience allows them to see themselves differently, practise something unfamiliar, and discover that there are other ways of responding. It’s uncomfortable but the results are awe inspiring.
My own contribution comes from years spent in business, leading people, building and selling ideas in a creative industry, and later working as a coach with leaders and business owners who are often highly capable but quietly stuck in the patterns that once made them successful.
Together, we keep returning to the same truth: leadership is not developed through knowledge alone.
There is horizontal growth, where we become better at our jobs. We sharpen our skills,, learn new methods, understand new systems and gain experience. All of that matters.
But its vertical growth that supports growing leaders, both inside and out
It’s rarely comfortable. It is the growth that asks us to expand the way we make meaning, hold complexity, relate to ourselves, relate to others and face the future with courage and determination. This is necessary because another thing we do know now more than anything is that the problems of our present and future will not be solved by applying what worked in the past.
To grow in that way, we cannot work only with the parts of ourselves that are useful in a boardroom or measurable in a performance review. We have to invite more of what it means to be human into the room: imagination, self-awareness, emotion, courage, values, reflection, care, vulnerability, perspective and the ability to remain grounded when there is no obvious answer.
Creativity is part of that.
Not because every leader needs to become an artist, and not because a paintbrush will solve the problems of modern business. Creativity matters because it loosens our grip on certainty. It interrupts the familiar routes in our minds. It helps us tolerate not knowing, make new connections and imagine possibilities that cannot be found by simply analysing what happened in the past.
I know something about commercial creativity. I spent years developing ideas for television shows and marketing campaigns that had to be imagined, pitched, sold and delivered. Yet put a paintbrush in my hand and I completely freeze.
Give me a business problem or an idea to develop and I’m energised. Ask me to create something without knowing whether it will be any good, and I feel exposed.
That has been a quite the realisation for me. Somewhere along the way, I decided that certain forms of creativity belonged to other people. To the free spirits. The artists. The people who appear to have all the fun.
Leigh continues to challenge that belief in me, just as she creates opportunities for leaders to challenge it in themselves.
Because creativity is not some rare artistic mood. It is a human capacity. And in a world changing as quickly as this one, it is becoming a leadership capacity too.
The public arrival of ChatGPT in late 2022 was, for many of us, the moment the pace of change became impossible to ignore. It was not the beginning of uncertainty, of course. We’ve had our fill of disruption in the past few years. But one thing is unmistakably clear: the future of work, knowledge, expertise, decision-making and human contribution is no longer going to unfold slowly or predictably.
It is exactly why diverse thinking matters so much now.
For a long time, many organisations have brought people into a version of “same-think”: rewarding certain forms of intelligence, certain ways of communicating, certain personalities and certain pathways to performance. People who thought differently, processed differently or saw patterns others missed were often expected to adapt to the organisation, rather than the organisation learning to value what they brought.
Forbes recently published an article on how some of the big tech and financial organisations are investing in the recruitment of neurodivergent talent. I’ll leave the article, titled . “ Why AI is making neurodivergent talent the most valuable hire in Tech” link below – it about providing opportunities for those who in the past were included on a compliance scorecard as having a disability. Suddenly, its these alterative thinkers, those with autism, dyslexia and ADHD that are being sought to help organisations innovate. I have an autistic nephew, I know how hard its been for him to find work. Yet the past year has seen him not just employed, but excelling.
The problems ahead of us are not going to be solved by a room full of people trained to arrive at the same safe answer. This is why our leadership development needs to go into places people, I include HR, L&D and leaders themselves, do not expect.
Ours is a leadership embodiment programme that does just that. Work with more than just our brains. We like to start with vision, because if you don’t know where you’re going there’s too much along the way to distract you. This isn’t goal setting, neither is it selfish. It’s about having some sense of the destination and the pathway. It’s about the way we want to feel when we get there, and who we’ll want to be with. It gives direction to the one who’s choosing to lead and do so, well. Because a leader without any connection to their own values, wellbeing, relationships or sense of purpose may remain functional for a long time, but there will eventually be a cost. To them. To their teams. To the quality of their decisions.
We also work with emotional intelligence, regulation, communication, personality patterns, mindfulness, resilience, dialogue, listening and silence. Not because these are soft additions to the “real” work of leadership, but because experienced leaders know that hard skills have a glass ceiling. You can become more efficient, more capable and more accomplished, but still be limited by the self-awareness, emotional range and humanity you are able to bring to what you do.
We ended our session this week with ahimsa, a ‘yama’, in essence a law, from ancient traditions predating organised religion, translated as the causing no harm.
On the surface, this may seem an unusual place for a leadership session to land. I can read their mind, “oh good I don’t really go out to harm anyone”.
But harm is not limited to physical violence or cruelty, it’s found in the judgement we bring into a room. Impatience, our disregard for our choices that cost the planet. And most importantly, in the way we speak to ourselves.
This is not separate from leadership.
The world needs leaders who can recognise what thoughts and actions (or lack of thereof) no longer serve us, who can bring broader perspectives into the room, who can remain human in the face of pressure, and who have the courage and imagination to build something better. Even if it means playing a little.
If you’re interested in more content like this join our leadership community ‘the Lead Always Forum’, find us here. https://leadalwaysforum.co.za/
