Making Things Happen by Releasing the Energy of Others 1

Making things happen by releasing the energy of others

Linda G.
Making Things Happen by Releasing the Energy of Others 2

Contenido
Introduction............................................................................................................ 3
Creative Leadership............................................................................................ 4
What is a leader?.......................................................................................... 4
What is Creative Leadership?...........................................................................4
Traits of creative leaders.................................................................................. 5
The nine principal rules of Creative Leadership............................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................... 9
Bibliography...................................................................................................... 10
Making Things Happen by Releasing the Energy of Others 3

Introduction

Especialists in education naturally feel a strong commitment to helping their students learn,
but this sense of commitment should not turn us into controlling leaders as that only ends
up hidering our students potential because they do not have the chance to ; breaking from
this overly controlling type of leadership is especially crucial when working with adults
because, as more experienced individuals in all fields of life, it is very important for them to
feel acknowledged and feel their personal needs are taken into account, as they have a
clearer visin of where they want to go and what they need to learn to get there.
Making Things Happen by Releasing the Energy of Others 4

Creative Leadership
What is a leader?

First of all, it is important for us to know what a leader is. Being a leader actually does not
have anything to do with having an important title (president, CEO, principal, etc.), not
every person that has an important position is a good leader, let alone a creative one, and
just because you are not an important person like them, does not mean you are
automatically not a leader.

Being a leader is more of an attitude than a given role; in order to be an effective leader,
you have to be able to inspire and motivate others in order to reach a goal and make great
things.

What is Creative Leadership?

As mentioned above, not every person that holds an important positions is automatically a
good leader. Many people believe that a leader is simply a person who is capable of making
others obey their orders (because that is what they have been taught); they believe that
effective leaders are the ones that can control others. This is not really true. While making
people listen to you is part of being a leader, just bossing people around does not make
anyone a respectable leader. People who resort to this method are indeed a type of leader:
the controlling type, but this type of leadership does not really make people grow as
individuals, it actually hinders peoples potential and creativity; it also creates an unhealthy
and unpleasant atmosphere because people feel constantly oppressed. They are pressured
to do everything flawlessy and exactly as they are told to.

The creative leader is basically the total opposite of the controlling leader. Instead of
focusing on making people do everything they say without asking any questions, creative
leaders care about the ideas of the people in their charge, they care about their feelings and
their different needs; and they are not afraid of giving some of the spotlight to their group.

Creative leadership is about making people grow as individuals in every aspect. It is about
inspiring people to reach their full potential. It is about teamwork.

That said, not everyone who at first resorts to the controlling approach does it with bad
intentions, many times people act like this because they naively believe that if they dont
everything will fall apart, but this is a mindset we have to eventually grow out of. The
sooner you realize there is another, more effective way of dealing with your group of
people (in our case, students), the faster you will get results.
Making Things Happen by Releasing the Energy of Others 5

Traits of creative leaders

1. Creative leaders generally make positive assumptions about human nature

2. Creative leaders accept that people feel more of a commitment to a decision

they feel they have significantly participated in making

3. Creative leaders believe in and use the power of self-fulfilling prophecy

4. Creative leaders highly value individuality

5. Creative leaders stimulate and reward creativity

6. Creative leaders seek continuous change and are skillful in managing it

7. Creative leaders emphasize internal motivators over external motivators

8. Creative leaders encourage people to be self-directing

The nine principal rules of Creative Leadership

1. It is not about individual creativity. It is about your teams creativity: Creative

leadership has very little to do with your creativity and everything to do with your
teams creativity. If it was only about your creativity, you wouldnt need a team.
(Baumgartner)

As the old saying goes: two heads are better than one. People all think differently
one from another and we all have different skills. We as humans have only a limited
vision, and we are bound to sometimes get stuck in one problem, and while we
probably would eventually get out of it, having someone else to discuss and share
ideas surely fastens things. Your temmates might come up with a brilliant idea that
might have never occurred to you.

2. You do not need to be creative, but you need to understand creativity:

Following from rule one, it is not necessary that you be a creative genius in order
to be a creative leader. What is important is that you understand the creative process
so that you can facilitate it for your team members. (Baumgartner)
Making Things Happen by Releasing the Energy of Others 6

3. Diversity: Sometimes you will have teams thrust upon you by circumstances and
sometimes you will be able to choose your team members. In the case you can
choose, go for diversity: diversity of experience, sex, culture, age, knowledge and
even skin colour. Include people whom you do not like if you know they get results.
Diversity is important, but it is often neglected. Most people, when putting together
teams, instinctively look for team members who are similar to themselves. Do not
make this mistake. (Baumgartner)

Simply puy: do not hinder the potential of a project because you are afraid of people
different to you, as long as they are trustworthy people, the differences between you
and them do not really matter, all that matters is reaching results.

4. Identify strengths and weaknesses on your team: Once you have your
diversified team, or have had a less than diverse team thrust upon you, you need to
identify the strengths and weaknesses of team members in order to maximise
effectiveness. Some people will be great with ideas but poor on implementation.
Others are the opposite. Some people are big picture people who are sloppy with
details. Others are obsessed with the details, but fail to see the big picture. Some
people work better at solving problems on their own. Others work better in
collaboration. (Baumgartner)

In order to prevent nasty surprises, you as the leader have to be ahead one or two
steps by already having considered the weak points of your team and the way you
can compensate for those lackings. Assign your team members to the fields they are
best with.

5. Trust your people: Micro-managers are never creative leaders. Never. Not once in
all of history. Being a micro-manager implies you do not trust your people to make
even simple decisions for themselves. Moreover, rather than promoting creativity,
you become bogged down in trivial details () Even if you believe their approach
is not the best, do not interfere. Let your people learn by trying. You may be
surprised, their approaches might work better than you expected. And if not, they
will learn by working out what went wrong and trying again. (Baumgartner)

Do not try to control people too much, a person that is never let free to make things
by themselves or to make their own decisions simply cannot grow. Simply do not be
an extremist, it is of course not good to leave people without any kind of
supervisin but it is no better to be an overbearing tyrant, there must be a balance.
Making Things Happen by Releasing the Energy of Others 7

6. Embrace Failure: Speaking of mistakes, if people cannot fail from time to time,
they will never achieve great things. This is a clich in the creativity and innovation
business. Nevertheless, it is amazing how many managers still do not tolerate
failure. As a creative leader, you have to know better. Encourage your people to try,
fail early and try again. Ensure that they share their failure stories so everyone can
learn from them. (Baumgartner)

We are all humans and we have all failed at least once in out lives. A person that
never fails is simply not human. Making mistakes is part of life so we should not let
one failure to break apart our confidence and motivation, much less shame the
people in our charge for their failures. Let your people (in this case your students)
know that just because they failed the first time does not mean they are useless or
that they will never do things right, they just have to analyze the reason(s) of their
failure so as to not make the same mistake(s) again. And above all, let them know
they have your support.

7. Encourage Debate: Your diverse team has diverse opinions and ideas. As a result,
there will inevitably be disagreements. Rather than squelching these disagreements
with the aim to avoid bad feelings, encourage team members to disagree with each
other in the form of respectful debate. Debate enables team members see things
from other perspectives, strengthen their ideas and rethink flawed ideas. Moreover,
it is far better to have team members criticise ideas and to deal with the issues
behind the criticism than to have customers criticise the results of those ideas.
(Baumgartner)

8. Champion Ideas: Your creative team will generate many ideas. As the team
leader, you need to champion those ideas. Sometimes you may even have to
champion ideas that you do not like, but which you realise offer value... By
becoming a champion of your teams ideas, you make it more likely that the ideas
will be realised. More importantly, you demonstrate very clearly to your team that
you believe in their ideas and them. And when you champion an idea you are known
to dislike, you impress people as being devoted to the team rather than yourself.
This is a very powerful message. (Baumgartner)

9. Make Ideas Come True: Innovation is the implementation of creative ideas in

order to generate value. Unfortunately, the path from a brilliant creative idea to an
innovation is not always easy going. You need to define and establish processes for
realising ideas. And you will need to take special care with highly creative or
unusual ideas. These have the potential to become breakthrough innovations. But
Making Things Happen by Releasing the Energy of Others 8

they are risky and, as such, are often quickly killed by senior management.
(Baumgartner)
Making Things Happen by Releasing the Energy of Others 9

Conclusion

Being a good leader means that you share with the individuals you are working with, you
wonder about physical status, mental status and emotional status. Leaders care about the
achievers.

As a leader you have to build trust and cultivate a sincere relationship with the people you
work with; have faith in your people, offer them challenging opportunities and delegate
responsibilities to them.

The highest function of leadership is releasing the energy of the people in the system and
managing the process for giving that energy direction toward mutually beneficial goals.
Making Things Happen by Releasing the Energy of Others 10

Bibliography

Baumgartner, J. (s.f.). www.creativejeffrey.com. Recuperado el Abril de 2017, de

www.creativejeffrey.com/creative/creative_leadership9rules.php?topic=creative