How Leaders Can Encourage Creativity via Ideation

Can leaders influence creativity? This is a valid question, especially in today’s fast-paced and dynamic world, where creativity is no longer optional—it’s a necessity. However, creativity is often misunderstood as an innate ability that people either have or don’t. While leaders recognize their influence on productivity, they often overlook their role in shaping creativity.

This is a misconception. As Adam Grant’s Originals and other research have shown, creativity is a learnable skill. With the right mindset and an environment that nurtures exploration, leaders can spark and sustain creativity in their organizations.

Here are three key ways leaders can foster ideation:

1. Encourage the Questioning of the Default

One of the most powerful drivers of creativity is challenging the status quo. Many disruptive ideas seem obvious in hindsight, but they often face strong resistance when first introduced. This happens because of status quo bias and risk aversion, which make it difficult for people to embrace new, unconventional solutions.

Leaders should encourage their teams to question existing processes and solutions to promote creative growth. This can be done through two approaches:

a) Encouraging Examination ("What is...?")

This involves scrutinizing the core elements of an organization’s processes or solutions. A great example is Elon Musk and his approach to space exploration with SpaceX. Instead of accepting the high cost of rocket manufacturing as an unavoidable reality, he questioned it and developed cheaper, reusable rockets—a breakthrough that revolutionized the industry.

To apply this approach, leaders can encourage their teams to ask foundational questions such as:

• What are the core assumptions behind our processes?
• What would happen if we removed or changed a key component?

b) Encouraging Imagination ("What if...?")

Instead of examining what already exists, this approach explores new possibilities. Many groundbreaking innovations stem from reimagining solutions rather than improving current ones.

Take Albert Einstein as an example. His revolutionary E=MC² equation didn’t come from analyzing existing energy theories alone—he imagined himself riding a wave of light, exploring its properties from an entirely new perspective.

Organizations like Google apply this principle through their famous 20% time policy, allowing employees to dedicate 20% of their work time to creative projects outside their daily tasks. This freedom fosters imagination and has led to innovations like Gmail and Google Maps.

Leaders should create a culture where employees feel encouraged to ask:

• What if we approached this problem differently?
• What if we applied insights from other industries to our work?

2. Mastery Before Broadening

Creativity isn’t just about coming up with wild ideas—it thrives on deep expertise. Leaders should cultivate a culture of mastery, where employees become highly skilled in their domains through deliberate practice.

However, true innovation often happens when experts venture into adjacent fields and apply their knowledge in new ways. Leaders can facilitate this by encouraging cross-functional experiences. For example:

• An experienced engineer could spend time in customer service to understand user pain points firsthand.
• An accountant could explore sales, gaining insight into how financial decisions impact revenue generation.

By blending expertise with fresh perspectives, organizations unlock creative solutions that wouldn’t emerge from isolated specialization alone.

3. Promote Divergent Thinking via Brain-Writing

Many leaders assume that brainstorming meetings are the best way to generate ideas. However, traditional brainstorming is flawed because of:

• Productivity blocking – In large meetings, many ideas never get voiced because time is limited.
• Ego threats – People may withhold unconventional ideas for fear of looking foolish.
• Conformity pressure – Team members may unconsciously align with the most confident or authoritative person in the room (Groupthink, Halo Effect, Authority Bias).

A better approach is brain-writing—where individuals write down their ideas before a meeting and submit them to the leader, ideally via email. Then, during the meeting:

1. The leader shares all ideas anonymously, removing biases.
2. Team members evaluate and refine the ideas without knowing who suggested them.

This method ensures everyone’s voice is heard, removes ego-related barriers, and fosters truly divergent thinking, leading to more innovative solutions.

Conclusion

Today’s dynamic business environment demands continuous innovation. Organizations that embed creativity into their DNA will be the ones to lead their industries into the future.

At LeadTO➡️, we understand that creativity must be intentionally cultivated. Through our framework, we help leaders measure their current effectiveness in fostering ideation and provide practical strategies to strengthen creative cultures. We guide leaders in creating environments that question defaults, build domain mastery before expanding, and promote divergent thinking through structured methods like brain-writing.

With LeadTO➡️, leadership transforms from managing operations to inspiring innovation — securing sustainable competitive advantage.