If you are in charge of a creative team you know that artists, writers, inventors and other creative types do things differently. That applies to their leadership styles too. Traditional business coaching and leadership styles can fall short for creative industry leaders, making it harder for them to inspire their team. Find out how an emotion-based reflective leadership approach can help you and your team of industry creatives take new and exciting approaches to your work.
Emotion’s Role in Creative Industries
Everyone has emotions. Even the most stoic business leader can’t entirely separate himself or herself from the negative impact of bad news or the rush of adrenaline that comes from accomplishing a goal. Because of this, it is important for every business leader to set aside time to understand their own emotions and how they connect to the work being done.
But in creative industries emotion plays an even bigger role. Creativity thrives on emotion. Inspiration rises and falls based on the connection industry creatives have with their customers, the product, or service.
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Creativity needs space to try and fail. Creative professionals need to know that one false start won’t cost them their job or a big contract. They need the opportunity to innovate and the support to know that when something doesn’t go right the first time, their managers and business leaders will have their back, giving them the space and opportunity to try something new. Without that space and support, creativity fades.
As a long-time business consultant and psychotherapist, I have seen what happens when the spark of creativity gets snuffed out by overly restrictive or emotionally detached leadership styles. I know how hard it can be for artists, musicians, writers and other creative types to perform their craft when they are struggling with unresolved resentment, confining restrictions, or feelings that their work is underappreciated or unnecessary. But I have also seen how a reflective leader can bring inspiration back, helping those same employees find new sparks of creativity and excitement for their work.
Why Traditional Business Coaching Fails Creative Industry Leaders
While any employee can benefit from emotionally intelligent guidance, the need for creative industry leaders to be sensitive to their team’s emotional needs is especially important. The truth is that traditional business coaching simply isn’t cut out for the emotion-first environment of the modern creative industry.
Traditional business coaching focuses on the “what” and “how” of doing business, without much consideration into “why” challenges arise or productivity fades. Business coaches without a background in psychology will often approach the issues their clients face in a purely logical way, trying to measure their way out of the creative slump their clients find themselves in. This mis-match between logic and emotion can create a communication barrier between client and coach, which in turn leads to frustration and feelings of futility.
All too often, in creative industry settings, that “why” comes down to creative teams’ emotional needs not being met. No matter how many referrals, new programs, or objective metrics you try in these traditional settings, you will continue to face struggles addressing the underlying emotional drives and limitations guiding your own actions and those of your team members. But traditional business coaching does not make space to deal with emotional issues. At best, it might touch on conflict resolution, but few if any business coaches will guide their clients through a mindful reflection on how disagreement and even anger can actually build up their teams’ ability to collaborate and inspire one another.
How Can Reflective Leadership Improve Creativity?
Developing Reflective Leaders is different. This team-based approach to business and executive coaching puts emotion first and mechanisms a distant second. When I am leading a Developing Reflective Leaders group through their program, I am helping them identify the emotions coming up in and around the work they are doing. For example, are they feeling frustrated that a project deadline keeps getting moved, or are they concerned that their creative work will be judged harshly by their colleagues? From there, I encourage the participants to share other times that they have faced similar emotional situations and how they moved through them. We may also look at a participant’s history with the issue to understand the patterns that emerge every time the issue comes up. Making space for this emotional reflection allows participants to reflect on their internal reactions to the external stimuli of their work life. That way they can be more emotionally present and responsive to struggles when they arrive.
Taking Reflective Leadership Back to Your Creative Team
As reflective leaders become more mindful of the emotional side of their work, they will naturally begin to model that mindfulness around their team members. Developing Reflective Leaders participants will learn techniques to better identify, assess, and empathize with the emotions their team members are facing. This will allow them to bring that same emotional responsiveness back to their creative teams, building a supportive environment that allows creative workers to trust that their risk-taking will be recognized, appreciated, and rewarded.
Reflective leaders will better understand how to develop the kind of trust that creative teams need to better collaborate, innovate, and iterate to reach the best solution for their products or customers. By taking the time to understand their own emotional responses, creative industry leaders can then bring that inspiration-saving mindfulness to the people they work with every day. That could mean sympathizing with a hard morning at home, or boosting up a team member’s self-worth when they finish a big project. It could even mean helping that team member do a bit of reflection of their own, following the same model to understand their own “why.”
Developing reflective leadership skills isn’t just about going through another program or finding another tool to apply to your problem. It’s about changing the way you think about the work you and your team are doing. By coming at issues from an emotional perspective first, you can provide your team of creative professionals better support and make it easier for them to do the hard work of developing new thoughts, images, and ideas.
We are offering leaders a 30 min complimentary meeting to discuss and explore a current challenge. We believe this introduction will offer you a taste of the group experience. Contact us to sign up for the Developing Reflective Leaders experience today.
David Stanislaw and his fellow facilitator Karen Sherwood have a combined 70 years of experience in psychoanalysis and business leadership consulting. As trained psychologists and experienced business owners, we understand the challenges creative industry leaders face in managing their teams. We are offering Developing Reflective Leaders as an opportunity to explore the emotional side of business leadership in a supportive group setting. Contact us today to sign up.
This post was written by a human without the use of AI. Stanislaw Consulting does not consent to the use of its online content to train large language models or other forms of artificial intelligence.
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