WHAT NEW THING DO YOU WANT TO BRING INTO BEING?

In other words, what is it you want to create from your position and power as
a top leader?

Innovation tends to belong to  business and creativity to the artistic.
I'm saying that a passionate  leader CREATES to bring something new into being.

I'm saying that a high impact leader is a creative artist. There is a hunger for bringing something new to the company, something needed and wanted and not yet discovered.  Not yet articulated. This is the highest level of leadership.
There are plenty of good leaders managing the margin of growth, cost cutting with laser surgery precision, statistically knowing the market of their business and developing strategy in dry talk talk talk meetings. 

I'm talking about a different level of leadership.  Creative leadership is fraught with tension and the irritation of being ahead of the organization, scanning for what needs to happen.  

The process involves intuition and instinct based on deep knowing of the company.  It involves trusting yourself.  It demands patience as the leader lets
the possibility grow while it forms itself into something more tangible.  The next step it so test the readiness of the "idea" by talking and listening and listening to see if the new direction holds water.  The question is "have you captured the longing and yearning of this organism (your company) for the new thing it needs?"  If so, excitement and interest will build.  The creative leader will become a bull dog to make the thing happen. Then will come the roller coaster of execution of the birthing of something very new. This is where courage and stamina and optimism are demanded.  

Do you have the beginning, an inkling, the irritation of a new creation for your company.  Do you give yourself enough time to think, to intuit, to dream.
Does an idea have a hold on you?  Are you ready for the excitement of going beyond the day to day?  Do you have the physical and emotional energy?
Are you a leader who want to create the new that's needed?

Being a creative leader is not for everyone nor needed by every company.
But if you are one, don't sit on that creative energy.
It is your unique gift and opportunity.  Don't let the habit of your business kill it.

INNOVATION ON THE BRAIN

It seems like there are two classes of companies.
  
Young, new to the market (five years) relatively small (500 employees top) and burning with an idea or social value that drives the business. Top leaders are usually 35-45 years old.

Then there are the sluggish bewildered giants battling to buy one another.
Huge numbers of employees, a crowded market squeezed for growth and top leaders who are 50 years old and up. They sell a familiar idea and format with the company values determined by the stock price.

The articles on innovation continue to be spit out in abundance.

I wonder:

What is the role of fresh innocent passion that doesn't know it can't do what it is doing?  I wonder how long this innocent passion can last before size and cost and entrepreneurial exhaustion hit?

What the CEO's of the giants are passionate about that has to do with the core business, not cost cutting and stock price and heady strategy and over measurement?  

How large can a company be and maintain enough freedom for initiative and exploration of ideas?  Size seems to create over control and over control seems to kill creativity

Do you as a CEO or top leader know five people in your company who are disruptive with new ideas?  Do they come to you to think with you?  Do they stimulate you with their ideas?  Do you find them irritating?  Do you engage with them anyway?  (Five is a pathetic number.)

Do you yourself, as a top leader, absolutely yearn to bring something new into being?  Will you irritate Board members to do it?  Will you plan to make analysts as exited about it as you are?  Are you too burdened and tired to gear up for your big idea.  Do you tell yourself it can't be done.  

Do you sometimes want to walk away from the size monster that keeps your creativity smothered?  Do you want to run a company or get something 
important and new done?  

Can you grow innovative edges around a moribund industry or does it have to start at the center and work its way through the company killing the old as it goes?

Does innovation have to be disruptive?

Should we just leave innovation to the youngsters knowing they'll have the same dynamics when they go through middle age and on into dinosaur times?

Do you care enough to talk about these questions with a colleague?

All this reminds me of a book I recommend:
THE END OF POWER: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States,Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be
By Moises Naim

REMEMBERING AND WONDERING---

Has it gotten any better?

My first job interview with GE for their advertising department asked if I was willing to take birth control pills for the three year training rotation after asking if I was going to marry.  (I was and I went into the Peace Corps instead of GE)

I wanted to be a foreign diplomat and my first day in college my advisor laughed and said, "Then marry one.  How about English Lit as a major?" (I said OK and went on to Beowolf.)

I taught Junior High English for three years (Oh, thank you English major)
in a tough inner city school.  There was no time for gender discrimination.  We were all teachers trying to survive and do some good. (Lesson--principals have no power).

My first job after divorce in social services, my boss said, "Don't talk about your kids, never call in sick to take care of kids and no family photos?"  This was Children and Family Services in Illinois. Get it?  Children services!!  Luckily my two women colleagues and I formed an alliance and drove the man nuts. We wall papered our offices with family photos  and would go into his office before important meetings and say we had to go home due to "you know".  I received nice promotions every six months and my last boss said I was too opportunistic. (I had never applied for any of the jobs i got)

My next boss who was CEO of a local bank was quite lovely but always always always introduce me as his "sunshine girl".  (Mild. But I was in my forties and quite capable of being crabby.)

I kind of enjoyed the hazing at a public utility where I worked in HR.  The union guys put me up in a cherry picker and left me for an hour until I yelled down that I intended to use it as a restroom.  I wrote the policy on AIDS there and created and ran training on the topic as well but when it was discussed at the top level I was politely asked to leave the room for gentility sake!!!  (I blushed and left--riiiight.)

At my next job (one I was lucky enough to make a career and loved) at an important Board meeting where I knew I was being looked at for promotion to officer, I was the only woman in the room.  I was asked to get more fruit and to monitor the room temperature better by the Board members.
I did a great presentation about creating an inclusive work place and was thanked only for my managing the hotel staff.  (Very fun for laughs after)

When my colleague guys got too off color with jokes and body parts i would warn them i was going to say the word "uterus" until they stopped.  They did.

One officer showed me his collection of sex tools and catalogues that were in his desk drawer.  I said, "Wow, that's a really exaggerated need, I wonder why?"
He laughed and we went on to business.  

In a Union meeting where I was asking to open the contract for some innovative work, the guys threatened to take off their pants. Two did.  I said, "I have three sons and a husband.  Let's order pizza and get the job done."  

Then there's the time an Officer had on a suede jacket and I rubbed the sleeve and said I liked the softness. He said, "Too bad I didn't wear my suede pants."
(I had to laugh at his quick humor and he became a supporter for my most progressive work.)

At my most important global Board presentation, I was two minutes late and on deck to talk immediately rather than in the afternoon.  Why?  At the dinner the night before I was put into the spouses van (which I enjoyed) and the guys put in a separate van (nice little wives have their separate but equal van). The men decided to move the meeting to an earlier time and re-arrange the agenda BUT forgot to let me know. (I nailed my presentation--adrenaline does that)  

I worked directly with good CEO's.  Good people I would want on my jury.  They couldn't, wouldn't monitor it all.  And in my work I took care of and fired enough  people for truly outrageous behavior so I knew the company's intentions were right. 

I had to know when goofiness was worth a fight, when it was a kind of inclusion into a club, and when I was truly discriminated against.  Most ,in regard to me, was petty and often funny.  What wasn't fair, I now believe, was being slower to promotion, left out inadvertently of adhoc discussions, and inequitable pay.
I learned to fight better for my own cause because it just could not be seen by the male top leader blind spots.  Once seen, usually fixed.  That is rare.  

Has it gotten any better?  Have you made it any better?  Or have the ladies (yea) taken over the castle?