Not Taught in Business Schools: Cultivating Creative Leading

Michael H. Shenkman President, Keystone International, Inc., Strategic Development Group

By Michael H. Shenkman, PhD

Budding business leaders often attend business schools to learn all the right skills, such as how to run scenarios, how to delegate tasks, how to plan both optimal and worst case budgets, and so on. Then, out in the “business world” they are often shocked to learn that the skills they’ve learned do not necessarily translate into becoming an effective leader.

It’s not that managerial skills aren’t useful—in fact no organization can survive without having people that can manage to a tee. Rather, true leading isn’t about those things. Leaders transform mere possibilities into new products, services and interactions through the efforts and commitments of collaborating followers. Leaders have to continually think and act creatively about their companies, its products and services, its people and customers. Yet, creativity as well as the creative process, is neither taught in most business schools, nor valued as a criterion for advancement.

Bridging the chasm between being a “good manager” and an “effective leader” entails being able to fully appreciate one’s creative talents and energies.

Even the most hard-nosed executive will acknowledge that a leader’s legitimacy and effectiveness in winning the trust and enthusiastic following of bright, competent employees depends on conveying a sense of immediacy and emotional involvement with the objectives and the people involved the endeavour. Creative expression forms bridges from one person to another, makes us real, and validates for others our ability to learn and grow – along with them – in the experiences they are undergoing. That connection is often forged by using the same technique of blending discipline with empathy and sensitivity to others’ learning that is applied in teaching and learning creative practices.

Just what kinds of creative practices am I referring to? Well, I mean the obvious- painting, creative writing, playing a musical instrument. But I also see how leaders benefit from other kinds of self-creating expression, whether that be learning a sport (yes, even golf), yoga or martial arts, really studying a discipline or a subject – many leaders like studying a period of history or studying a specific historical figure – or doing extensive, non-business travel and adventure.

By “creative” I mean activities by which one grows, learns new skills, responds spontaneously, in order to master a situation. I prefer situations in which a teacher is involved – the mentoring, focusing, obligating interactions usually contribute important dimensions to the experience – but not always. The activity should be something with infinite learning horizons, so that the leader always knows there’s further to go, and always someone to learn from.

Most of the young executives I work with long ago abandoned their “youthful” pursuits of art or music or athletic or academic prowess. Their focus was on achieving: getting good grades to get into good schools and colleges, or learning new crafts that they hope will establish them in a community of producers, parents and citizens, learning the specific technologies of a managerial or business function; then working long and hard to climb the corporate ladder to “success.” This is all to the good.

But the harm done by cutting off one’s creative energies, segregating off the “personal” and/or “creative” from the “professional” results in a truncated view of the business life. This view unfortunately portrays the manager as being some kind of drone, nose to the grindstone, workaholic.

As many business leaders know, to get dedicated performance from skilled and talented employees, leaders have to be willing to act as an example to these people, showing them how someone behaves, speaks, thinks and listens when they truly care about bringing something new and daring into the world, and learning from the process. They have to demonstrate that life in the business is conducted on the same moral par as other aspects of our lives, such as our spiritual and environmental connections, our obligations to the health of our communities and families.

Demonstrating values, a process that demands high levels of creativity, is the single most important factor that distinguishes leading from managing. Since leading is a crucial component of these people’s intentions, having access a wide range of expression is crucial. Creative expression is the only way values are made clear and compelling in any situation that demands leading.

Businesses are the largest consumers of our leading talents. Every business has many leaders, or at least one and by far the majority of us in the U.S. are directly or indirectly involved in businesses. So it is in businesses that most of our future and current leaders’ full talents are envisioned and realized. Creative practices, the way we dramatize and demonstrate our values, though not taught in business schools, nevertheless comprises the foundation of any leading that is worthy of the name.

Michael Shenkman, Ph.D., is founder and president of the Arch of Leadership (www.archofleadership.com), a leader mentoring company. This article was adapted from his new book, The Arch and The Path, the Life of Leading Greatly (Sandia Heights Media, 2005).