Art of Leadership

Todd’s Post: Inspiring Employee Creativity

Todd’s post explains how managers can inspire employees to be creative in a company using the example of a dancing youngster (Todd 2014). To do this, the leadership must create a secure environment, recognize risk-takers, and promote involvement among all employees. This is made feasible by changing the working environment to encourage innovation from all staff members.

Encourage Open Communication

Encourage open communication as it is a surefire approach to create a secure work atmosphere. According to Pentland (2012), improving team communication is essential for raising performance. Each member of a team needs to feel secure psychologically such that they can openly offer innovative suggestions without being intimidated by other members. Open communication should be encouraged at all levels of the organization, including meetings and tea breaks.

Rewarding Risk-Takers

Secondly, the leadership can reward the risk takers by giving them responsibilities to lead the teams. Few employees can step up to a challenge and use unconventional methods to solve a problem. Pentland (2012) believes that employees that are brave enough to introduce innovative processes ought to be rewarded with leadership positions, besides the verbal appreciation or encouragement from the leadership.

Inspire Participation from All Employees

Thirdly, it is imperative to inspire participation from all employees by creating dynamic teams. London and Mone (2012) argue that working with cohesive groups has been proven as a way to enhance performance in an organization. Unlike bureaucratic organizations that allow only appointed leaders to make decisions, dynamic teams have open structures that enable each member to have a voice in decision-making. When employees work in such teams, they are likely to be creative as suggested by Todd (2014).

References

London, M., & Mone, E. M. (2012). Leadership for Today and the Future (2nd ed). [electronic version]. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/

Pentland, A. (2012). The New Science of Building Great Teams. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2012/04/the-new-science-of-building-great-teams

Todd, A. (2014, January 16). Get Your Employees To Work ’Like Nobody’s Watching.’ Forbes.com. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkotter/2014/01/16/get-your-employees-to-work-like-nobodys-watching/#29321a4d39b8