How to make a modern creative leader
With business and cultural landscapes ever-evolving, those in leadership roles need to evolve too. Simon Poett, Executive Creative Director at The Brooklyn Brothers, looks at the importance learning, sharing and listening play when managing a team or business.
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Right now, the combination of pandemic and seismic cultural change means the question, ‘what is required of a modern creative leader?’ is one I think about almost every day.
The righteous change that has swept our culture – across gender, race and more – has been welcome, and entirely necessary. But it has also been unprecedented, which means it requires fundamental change, new behaviours, different attitudes, greater openness, and a willingness to acknowledge and accept previous limitations and failings.
[Fundamental changes] require those of us in privileged positions to interrogate what it means to lead and manage people in the creative industries.
That is not always entirely comfortable. But, crucially, it requires those of us in privileged positions to interrogate what it means to lead and manage people in the creative industries in a way that we may never have before.
Above: It's important to give people time and space for their mental wellbeing.
It means that I’ve been challenged by my own insecurity, my own subconscious bias, my own inability to process complex issues, my ability to really listen and not speak. It requires me to face up to the realisation that there's a lot I really don’t know. And this is after more than 20 years in the industry.
Culture can't be manufactured but it can be cultivated.
For example, I’ve tried to rethink the way I engage with my team by incorporating one-to-one sessions, group moments in-the-round and monthly sharing sessions of work or inspiration. Culture can't be manufactured but it can be cultivated. We’ve encouraged the specialist disciplines within the agency - across film, design and social - to share their individual inspirations, actively engaging our teams and our clients in diversity and inclusion programmes and learning, making commitments for the agency itself, our working practices and our clients' work.
In those significant moments that have affected our culture, we’ve been thoughtful about people’s mental health, giving them the time and space they need to work through complex world events that have affected them, opening forums allowing people to express their hopes, fears and concerns.
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Above: There are countless talks, seminars and panel events where you can supposedly learn about leadership.
In other ways, we've used our creative superpowers to support internal projects that have challenged opinions and mindsets on the things that matter – race and the necessary conversations between parents and their children, as well as the importance of female safety on the cities’ streets. I think it’s incredibly important to let creative people have their voice, the platform we offer isn't just for our clients, it’s culture more broadly, so if we can support that, we will.
It’s become all too easy to say the right things, to heavily reference pseudo-business science, to bamboozle and confuse, and to nudge.
There are so many ways to learn about leadership it almost becomes a paradox of uncertainty. No leader, or prospective leader, is short of opportunities for formal learning to gain skills and techniques. Add to that the TED talks, the inspirational speakers, the panel discussions and webinars with their endless analogies from sporting and artistic to business and even military. It’s become all too easy to say the right things, to heavily reference pseudo-business science, to bamboozle and confuse, and to nudge.
But in my mind, that isn't leading.
Above: Being a great leader means being a brilliant listener.
I think, for anyone looking to lead in a creative environment in this era, you must ask yourself; what works for you, what inspires you? And the answers will be entirely individual. There are, of course, styles and techniques – fearless, inspirational, dictatorial. Most of us will have experienced these first-hand – this industry has been rife with these, often all combined in one person. But the real question is; what’s required to make you a brilliant leader? And, let’s be honest, the hardest questions are always about you, aren't they?
For a long time I established my own leadership perspective by building on the experiences I’ve had working under three good leaders. I asked myself what they did well that I would like to repeat and tried to leave any examples of bad leadership behind. I think about my parents, I think about my partner, my children, my friends. I think about the person I’m trying to be.
I think being a good leader means being a brilliant listener. Leading by example and not being afraid to do what you ask your team to do.
I think being a good leader means being a brilliant listener. Leading by example and not being afraid to do what you ask your team to do. It means admitting you definitely do not know all the answers and being unafraid to say so. It means investing as much time into your team as you do into the work. That way it becomes a fully reciprocal process, it feeds itself.
At its best, the creative industry is a people-powered movement, a community of thinkers, makers and doers. We exist for transcendental moments where creativity flows, where a group of like-minded individuals with differing backgrounds, ages, ethnicity and genders, all work towards making something great. Something better than we did last time. And here lies the simple, inevitable truth: each of those people needs to be better than you. Much, much better than you.
If you can live with that, you will succeed. That's what I think makes a (brilliant) modern creative leader.
