At de Lange wrote:
>I have followed the recent discussion on leadership closely, trying to see
>whether this round would bring us closer to the relationSHIP between
>LEAEDRship and CREATIVITY. Up to now little has been said on this
>relationship. Cannot the suffix "ship" in relationship guide us to think
>constructively about leaders and creativity?
Dear At and all,
I would like to draw your attention to one of the many coincidences, which
makes this list so rich for me. Usually, I assume that a coincidence is
only meaningful for those who observe it, so I take coincidences as little
presents without trying to show them to all.
But with At's paragraph it became too dense for me, so let me sketch
briefly.
In the thread on "content and practice of this list", I just mentioned,
without giving an example, that coincidential patterns form a major source
of feedback for me.
The comment from Steve triggered to think about leadership as something
that must grow, so creativity is involved. In human context also the first
emergent of creativity namely learning is necessary. Hence I wrote:
>Anyone can be or become a leader for some and increasingly more.
>
>This changes the emphasize from "How much is there to leadership" to
>"Where is the right place for me to be for balanced give and take and
>much learning."
I wrote this also under the impression of an article which Jack Zigon
pointed to in his mail (Perf Measurment in the news LO22241)
<http://zigonperf.com/PM%20News/Welch_Ideas.htm>. Jack Welch from GE is
cited with "I tell people to never allow themselves to become victims in
an institution. Because many people end up feeling like victims. They are
in the wrong job, or they have plateaued or they don't want to rock the
boat.", enriching the "law of 2 feet" - brought up in the content and
practice thread.
"Never allow oneself to become a victim" is quite close to "never allow
ones creativity to be impaired". From the mouth of Jack Welch and in words
of At de Lange, it is like stating that the relationship between
creativity and leadership is that constructive creativity is essential to
leadership (constructive in the sense of "do not create victims"). But
additionally a relationship between a (Non-)leader and a victim is
established. Victims are told that being a victim has an active part to it
and the required consequence is to leave that relationship - leaving
"leaders" alone who cause others to feel like victims. Those who remain
are voluntary victims, but for such "teams" it will be difficult to meet
performance requirements.
This sheds also some light on two issues in discussion here:
What about defining a leader by means of having followers? A non-creative
leader may have non-creative followers. So this definition is not
compatible to "creativity is essential to leadership". (I am not talking
of right or wrong, just not fully compatible).
What about the moralty of a leader? Creativity alone does not prohibit the
creation of masses of victims. In fact destructive creativity is much
easier than constructive creativity. It was Ray Harrel a few mails ago who
mentioned Paul Tillichs "Courage to Be". Isn't courage to be again another
way to say "I don't allow my creativity to be impaired" or "I don't allow
myself to become a victim"?
Leadership is nothing which is real in the world out there. So anybody may
fill in the meaning which suits best for him. No right or wrong here. Full
freedom of choice. But I wish to caution that such a choice is a creative
act. And as such it has irreversible consequences. These consequences are
manifestations in the real world (otherwise the choice wouldn't be a
creative act).
Therefore, although I have to admit that others may choose differently, I
don't want to accept a term "leadership", which doesn't explicitly include
the meaning "constructive creativity".
Liebe Gruesse,
Winfried
--"Winfried Dressler" <winfried.dressler@voith.de>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>