Sometimes we creatives are not good leaders? Are we?
We are visionaries!
We are creative and we are strategic. We have passion and willingness to work infinite amount of hours to execute an idea. But sometimes, it is hard to lead. Seriously! This is by means no admission that I have not tried or will try again to successfully lead a group with a common mission/goal. It is a self-reflection that I realize that I was not pre-disposed to be a natural born leader. I think? We just believe in tomorrow’s human capital!
We generate great ideas!
We live in a world that beats to many different drums. We feel our path and not objectively understand how to get to the final resting place. But we understand that the path is so much fun. Our ideas do not come to us during a planning session, they happen in the middle of the night when we least expect. They happen in the shower or when we are screaming down the road at 85 mph with the windows down. But the logical side of our brain knows and understands that we must capitalize on that very moment of true epiphany. We must implement the creative thought right when it pops in our brain. You will find us running through the house stark naked to jot down the idea, draw that vision, create that master piece. We will cut across five lanes of traffic under creative transcendental inspiration, just to get to the side of the interstate to jot it down. We are passionate about our ideas.
We need implementors!
We need help. We see the vision and can articulate the vision, but we rely on those who have the expertise to help us implement the vision. The vision is clear in our head…so clear we can almost reach out and touch it. But, we need those who can decipher our vision into a palatable final product. Yes, we can be technicians of our trade, but as practitioners we understand to rely on those have the technical expertise to make the final product shine!
We like living within our creative freedom!
We know when to turn on that perfect song to get us into a creative rhythm. We like to spread our wings and let the emotion of the story influence the direction. We get so in-tune with our creative thoughts that those looking in have a hard time communicating with us during the moments of inspiration. We can see the lips flapping, but the words just do not register. We are in the zone. We are in the place where we so connected with our big “T” truth, that it only makes sense to us. It feeds our ego and separates us from others. We love our passion.
Structure is a necessary evil!
We understand that organization is the one thing that still keeps us human. It is that calendar or the to-do list that brings us back to reality. It is that assistant that is so OCD about keeping structure, that we knew when we hired them…it was necessary for not only our mental sanity but to ensure we kept our business thriving. We find value in the other side of the brain, just sometimes it is hard to make it happen.
Our minds rationalize differently!
We articulate our thoughts verbally so that we when hear ourselves say it out loud, we can then find the holes in the idea. We speak in tangents and outliers that ultimately have meaning to the bigger story, but we have to rationalize it in our own brains just to get to the final point. We chose to take the road less traveled because sometimes we do not like to feel mainstreamed. We like the opposing argument, just to argue that position with out any pre-disposition…because we can! We like a-typical. We want to be in the minds of those we are trying to influence, so we can understand how to truly create and influential piece of creative. We are flat out manic!
We do not create on a timeline!
What is a timeline…oh, that thing that keeps us on task. We just cannot force our inspiration…it just happens at 3am when the dog happened to lick our face and that is the one little thing that made it all click. We procrastinate because we work better under pressure, knowing we have to deliver the best thing since sliced bread in the next few hours. It is like a drug…the ability to create a masterpiece in a tight timeframe knowing inspiration will hit us at that an unknown moment. Then we deliver and sleep like no tomorrow.
We lead by example!
We lead from our hearts, our passions, and our past experiences. We want to create a community of ideas, bring people together with a common vision, and allow them to create more pieces of fine art. We have been down that road before. Living the dream with bad bosses, bad corporate structure…and it is our hope to make it a little better for those that will lead us to the next millennium. Why, because we believe in our future. We believe we must give back because those we are trying to inspire will be the ones who decide how our legacy(s) will live for the next millennium.