Leaders are the most creative people on the planet

By Michael Nichols

There are many good people mired in mediocrity and comfort. They spend much of life defending why they do what they do, selling what they’ve always sold, and protecting their organizations from being devoured by the forces of the new. Let’s face it – maintaining the status quo has to be exhausting.

I love new ideas. I love growth. And because I love growth, I love the creativity and innovation that growth requires! Creatives continually challenge the status quo. And since vision is at the core of leadership, leaders must be the most creative people on the planet! Which quite simply makes mediocrity poor leadership.

Here are 3 things that I’ve learned from creative leaders…

1. To accomplish vision the culture must change. Effective leaders possess an extraordinary curiosity about the world they’re trying to change. And they do something about it. Seth Godin found that change almost never fails because it’s too early – it almost always fails because it’s too late. Great leaders challenge the status quo early and often.

2. The world’s most valuable assets are ideas. So great leaders align team members by listening to their ideas, developing a common vision, committing to the vision, and making decisions based on that commitment. Then, they clearly and consistently communicate the envisioned future.

3. There really is no secret to success. Success is simply the byproduct of trying harder and trying longer. And if you’re going to be successful, you’ll need an unrelenting vision from deep within that harnesses every ounce of creativity in your soul and consumes all of your energy every waking moment. Life is too short to live in comfort. Your calling is far too important to approach it with apathy.

In his book Primal, Mark Batterson observed that it’s far easier to find something wrong with a new idea than to admit something is wrong with the old way of doing things. We need fewer haters and more creators. We need fewer commentators and more inventors. We need fewer imitators and more dreamers.