Do you believe that you should have all the answers as a leader?
Simon Sinek, an American author and motivational speaker, best recognised for his TEDx Talk, How Great leaders inspire action, says that the role of a leader is not to come up with all the great ideas. Nonetheless, it is to create an environment in which great ideas can happen.
In his book Start With Why Simon maintains that employees working directly for the organisation are better suited to come up with innovative solutions. To give you an idea, the employees who answer the phones and speak with customers can provide you with more information about the types of enquiries they receive than anybody seated in an executive suite thousands of miles away. Moreover, when employees are instructed to simply show up for work and complete their tasks, that is all they will do. I could not agree more with this. Leaders are to encourage and champion ideas than be the sole source of them!
The Co-CEO and Chair of IDEO Tim Brown who frequently speaks about the value of design thinking, creative leadership, and innovation says that if leaders think they should have all the answers, then they are both wrong and significantly restricting the ability of the organisation to be creative. Tim implies that the best leaders come up with great questions rather than answers to create an environment where great ideas materialise. He suggests that asking the right questions to help frame the challenge stops the leaders from assuming they must have the answers and enables creativity in their teams.
To foster a culture of creativity, leaders must encourage and enable collaboration, and motivate their people to take calculated risks whilst accepting the likelihood of failure.
Naveen Maram
Driven to inspire the next-gen.
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