“In leading a team of people, the focus is on efficiency and productivity. In leading a team of creative people, the focus is on exploration and discovery.”—Richard Florida
STEVE JOBS
Nothing is more powerful than a well-oiled team of creatives working together to achieve a common goal. Even seemingly impossible visions can come to life with all hands on deck. The largest roadblock your creative team will face in their success is highly dependent on the quality of you, their leader.
When it comes to great leaders, Steve Jobs immediately springs to mind. Steve Jobs is the founder of Apple, the world’s first trillion-dollar company. Forged in the image of its founder, many of Apple’s most recognized consumer technology products are a direct result of Steve’s radical creative leadership style. Even years after he passed in 2011, his ideologies continue to echo through Apple’s culture and innovations.
What set Steve Jobs apart from other leaders was the type of people he was capable of leading. He had the ability to inspire and guide the kind of people who don’t fit neatly into corporate structures. Creative types march to the beat of their own drum and can be difficult to manage. They’re usually the outcasts in the office. Steve’s leadership principles were perfect for rallying the most brilliant creative thinkers, dreamers, and rule-breakers to collaborate on one shared vision.
In an interview he said, “The greatest people are self-managing. They don’t need to be managed. Once they know what to do, they’ll go figure out how to do it. They don’t need to be managed at all. What they need is a common vision, and that’s what leadership is. What leadership is is having a vision, being able to articulate that so the people around you can understand it, and getting a consensus on a common vision. We wanted people that were insanely great at what they did, but were not necessarily those seasoned professionals, but who had in the tips of their fingers and in their passion, the latest understanding of where technology was and what we could do with that technology, and who wanted to bring that to lots of people. So the neatest thing that happens is when you get a core group of 10 great people, it becomes self-policing as to who they let into that group. So I consider the most important job of someone like myself is recruiting.”
Most creative people are scattered with their goals and ideas, pushing companies away from hiring them. But as advertising legend David Ogilvy once said, “The best way to manage creative people is to let them be creative.” Steve Jobs did just that. He let them be creative but acted as a constant reminder of the company’s goals. He infused freedom, hard work, and experimentation into his team, but when they started to veer off in the wrong direction, he aggressively got them back on track.
YOUR ROLE AS A LEADER
Creators lined up to follow Steve Jobs because they admired his creative genius. People wanted to be like him and contribute to his ambitious visions for Apple. True leadership is not telling others what to do. It’s inspiring them to be their best selves. That’s why to thrive as a creative leader you have to lead by example.
Become the creator who has the power to inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more. If you slack off on self-growth, your team will know. It will show in the lackluster ideas you share and the uninspiring stories you tell. When you relentlessly exercise and improve your creativity, you will demonstrate to your team that it’s possible to turn an idea into reality.
Creativity is more than coming up with great ideas. It’s also about the process of bringing those ideas to life. As a creative leader, you must understand the creative process and how to manage it effectively. You have to know when to step in and provide guidance and when to step back and let your team take the lead. You have to be able to balance the need for structure and direction with the need for freedom and flexibility.