Creativity in leadership: a need for a silent revolution?

Before I dive into this article, it's important to me that I share that I'm feeling frustrated and disappointed at the moment, which is likely to shape how I write it. I spent a good amount of time yesterday afternoon and this morning writing this, and then accidentally knocked the 'back' button and lost it all. Perhaps what we've ended up with is better, it's definitely going to be a different shape, and much shorter. Thank you for understanding!

I'll begin with a thought to challenge leadership decision-making. From time to time leaders face an issue, like declining market share. When they crop up, there's an internal tug to return to what's familiar. Initiate cost-saving measures. Think about a restructure. Ruthlessly pursue efficiency. But what if the familiar is exactly what's caused the problem in the first place? The future is often defined by doing something radically different for the first time. What appears radical to one generation is considered mild in comparison to the direction the next takes it.

Before you read the rest of this article, you ought to watch this performance of the piece of music 4'33 by John Cage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWVUp12XPpU

I think it's brilliant. My seven year-old son doesn't even really understand what he's watching, and genuinely thinks that I can hear something he can't.

The mometary silent upbeat in Bohemian Rhapsody before the electric guitars and drumkit kick in is the very thing that's needed to instruct the crowd to bang their heads in unison. The mass of white space on a page containing a single word spelled out in black letters gives that word more meaning, not less. Sometimes we need to stretch the very definition of something to discover for ourselves what it could mean, if we just allow it to.

As artificial intelligence shows its ability to make data-driven decisions better than humans can, in a microcosm of the VUCA dial being turned up to 11 that we're all seeing in multifaceted ways across the board, we need to be open to new leadership paradigms more than ever before. 'Wicked problems' - where traditional approaches to solutions make them worse rather than better - are threatening to become the norm as technology, politics, society, the environment and more shake around us.

Every so often, we need someone like Cage who will do something that challenges the way that we even think about leadership.

When leadership becomes unacceptable

There's a lot that could be said about this, but for now let's reflect on the experience of 4'33 being performed for the first time. It paved the way for countless more creative expressions of music and more, precisely because it was initially unacceptable. It violated every convention about what music should be. It made audiences uncomfortable. It challenged fundamental assumptions about artistic value.

To be creative in leadership demands a willingness to venture beyond what's 'acceptable'. I wrote here last year about how technology influences the way we think about leadership. Organisations want data-driven decision-making and efficiency over everything because that's what machines make possible. With AI now capable (arguably) of doing that better than a human, what's the role of a leader?

Is it to make decisions that might lack logic per se, but follow a mature human's intuition? Is it to push boundaries in ways that AI can't, or simply to create a hands-off framework within which AI can provoke thought?

The sort of leadership that will stand the test of time is quite likely to be borne out of the courage to be misunderstood.

By design this doesn't fit into existing leadership competency frameworks, and that's not a bad thing. Most definitions of good leadership, for example, put decisiveness as an attribute of good leadership. But when I think about the leaders I truly look up to, knee-jerk reactions aren't what I admire about them. It's their wisdom, bravery, integrity, kindness and self-control.

In practice

This isn't a call for immature or ill-thought-through leadership - quite the opposite. John Cage spent decades learning about music. The orchestra that performs the piece in the video above is one of the most professional in the world. And there are some particular practices that might support experimenting in this space. Here are three suggestions:

1. Embrace constraints as catalysts for creativity. It's widely recognised that innovation thrives when limits are placed on us. "My client couldn't meet me today, so we did the meeting over the phone. I wonder what would happen if I offered that to everyone?" Introduce arbitrary limitations: Half the usual budget, taking out a piece of technology, designing for only one stakeholder group. See what happens.
2. Selectively break metrics. One might measure geographical progress in miles, but travelling from London to Beijing needs a journey in the opposite direction and then a wait in the departures lounge first. Two hours after leaving the home, the person who chooses to walk is making much more progress against that metric but we all know that the one using the plane will win the race. Find ways to recognise and reward experimentation and extreme early signals, even when they don't translate into this quarter's KPIs.
3. Build and maintain space. Assign budgets to allow for innovation, yes, but the organisations that will succeed are those that have cultures that support the right outcome. Create explicit permission and encouragement for intelligent testing of the unknown, for challenging assumptions and for acting out what can't yet be articulated.

The future sound of leadership

The best leaders of the future will be those that are the most fully human, that provide space for AI to add value in the ways it undoubtedly can, and that create opportunities that their grandchildren will be proud to hear about. We sometimes need a 4'33 moment to push something to its extreme so that we can discover what matters the most.

The challenge for the modern leader is surely in developing comfort with the liminal space between conventional solutions and breakthrough innovations. We need to craft new leadership attitudes that prioritise creativity over analytics, questions over answers. Leaders need to be catalysts and advocates for change that others actually drive, without feeling a need to know everything themselves.

The future belongs to leaders who understand that in a world of accelerating change we sometimes need to notice the sounds that are already there, but that we can't hear through the noise. Maybe we just need that time for silence.

The question is, therefore: Are we ready to listen?