CEOs around the world today place more emphasis on the creativity of their leaders than their rigor, management discipline, integrity, or vision, according to a newly released study from IBM. Indeed, the study finds that the creative management style--which is marked by taking calculated risks and communicating in new ways--will lead to more success as companies struggle to find their way in an increasingly complex and interconnected world.
The key message that IBM heard over and over from the 1,500 CEOs, general managers, and senior public sector leaders that it interviewed from September 2009 through January 2010 was that creativity has become a more valuable leadership attribute than in the past. What's more, creativity--meaning not only the capability to create something new but to drive "disruptive innovation and continuous re-invention"--is now more important than other leadership qualities, like management discipline, rigor, or operational acumen.
In other words, it's now better to be able to rapidly generate potentially innovative or disruptive business plans and products than it is to be able to carry them out, to maintain one's integrity in carrying it out, or even to be able to conjure up grandiose and strategic "visions" of where an organization ought to be headed. Of course, there will always be a place for true business visionaries, but the idea here is that tactical, short-term creative thinking in smaller chunks is more conducive to surviving and thriving in the "new" business climate than the big-chunk, long-term planning that has served corporations so well in the past.
To read the full, original article click on this link: The Four Hundred--Creativity Is the New Business Kool-Aid, IBM CEO Study Finds
Author: Alex Woodie
