Mark McGuinness is a coach and poet based in the U.K. whose practice includes a focus on working with fellow creative people. I've appreciated Mark's work for many years, and when several of my clients unexpectedly found themselves responsible for managing creative teams, I asked him to share some advice for leaders in that position:
Creatives typically have very high levels of intrinsic motivation for their work–they really love to work, and live to do great work. This causes creative teams to hold themselves to high standards, and it's important for a leader to bear this in mind.
In a corporate setting one of the leader's most important tasks is to channel creatives' enthusiasm so that it will be most valuable to the company, ensuring the work is on-brief, on-brand and on-message, as well as artistically excellent. The best creatives are the ones who can square this circle by coming up with original and commercially relevant work, and they relish this challenge.
So when I'm working with leaders of creative teams, I encourage them to adopt a coaching style as much as possible, drawing on Daniel Goleman's six basic leadership styles. [see below] This allows the leader to draw out creatives' ideas and enthusiasm and afford them an appropriate degree of autonomy, while also monitoring progress in a supportive way.
Mark expands upon this advice in How to Motivate Creative People (Including Yourself), and he recommends these additional resources:
- Herding Tigers: Be the Leader That Creative People Need (Todd Henry, 2016): "A really good book about leading creative teams, addressed to senior creatives who are making the transition to team leader. I interviewed Todd about the book when it came out."
- Tantrums and Talent: How to Get the Best From Creative People (Winston Fletcher, 1999): "A readable book on the subject, although I don't entirely agree with the chapter on 'the creative personality.' Valuable quotes from experienced leaders, and practical advice on things like briefing and feedback."
- The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever (Michael Bungay Stanier, 2016): "I often buy this for clients to help them become better coaches at work, and I also interviewed Michael."
For Further Reading
Coaching and Feedback Tools for Leaders: A compilation of my work on these subjects from the past decade. In this context I recommend How Great Coaches Ask, Listen and Empathize. By using coaching methods and techniques, leaders can offer useful guidance whether or not they have creative talent or experience with the creative process.
Leadership That Gets Results (Daniel Goleman, Harvard Business Review, 2000). In this classic HBR piece, Goleman discusses six different leadership styles and their impact on morale and motivation:
Coaching leaders help employees identify their unique strengths and weaknesses and tie them to their personal and career aspirations. They encourage employees to establish long-term development goals and help them conceptualize a plan for attaining them. They make agreements with their employees about their role and responsibilities in enacting development plans, and they give plentiful instruction and feedback. Coaching leaders excel at delegating; they give employees challenging assignments, even if that means the tasks won’t be accomplished quickly. In other words, these leaders are willing to put up with short-term failure if it furthers long-term learning.
Of the six styles, our research found that the coaching style is used least often. Many leaders told us they don’t have the time in this high-pressure economy for the slow and tedious work of teaching people and helping them grow. But after a first session, it takes little or no extra time. Leaders who ignore this style are passing up a powerful tool: its impact on climate and performance are markedly positive.
Photo by Global Stomping.