These are the skills which generally encourage people to achieve their goals by fulfilling their potential. These skills are relevant in many fields and assist the users to improve their creativity.
1. There must be a dream or vision One who does not have a vision cannot be classified as a leader. Remember what Martin Luther King said: "I have a dream". In other words one must have a dream which can clearly be communicated to others. It depends, how fascinating and compelling the story is, and it determines how many people will like it and follow.
Leaders are not afraid to have a vision that is challenging, since creative people always welcome the challenge. There are many examples of such heroes, for instance, Cyrus the Great, who united the warring Aryan Tribes to form out world's first 'Empire' in 526 BC. It was his dream to lead his people to make them united and to convert this unity into an empire which bore splendour and strength.
A similar vision forced Chandargupta Maurya to lead his people to forge out one of the greatest Empires of his days. Such successes are possible by having a dream, a dream that can lead to wonders.
2. Have a purpose In the creative field, the desire for power, politics and leadership is not helpful, such desire tends not to get best out of one's own spirit. However, one should realise that for a success vision is desirable, obviously because when you work with the people, there must be someone to lead them. The purpose is to give others a sense of direction.
3. Pick a fit team The potentially better people can always improve the working environment, the changes they make can assist one to lead, because the leaders learn and improve from a changed environment. The quality of a leader is to create an environment where the expertise and knowledge of talented people can be used for getting the desired results. The leaders have the potential to direct the talented members of their team to create a win-win situation.
4. Have patience for creativity The creativity requires a new way of thinking about one's strategy and generally people take a binary view, that is, either the confronting uncertainty is under-estimated or it is over-estimated, the process of creativity thus requires patience and time, accordingly the leaders should always have a flexible Schedule for their goals.
5. Conflict management The action and reaction among humans lead to conflict and that is why a leader is always confronted with conflicts, and in order to reduce these conflicts leaders involve their teams in the processes involving conflict resolution. Their involvement leads to better understanding of issues and their comprehension of these issues leads to conflict resolution.
The purpose is to provide an opportunity to others to come up with their arguments and then to consider points of conflict; if the points of conflict can be resolved by persuasive efforts, obviously this approach is going to be accepted and it leads to success.
That is why the leaders pick up a specific approach and often come up with their own reasoning for opting for such a move. In this regard, one may like to study the life and times of Alexander of Macedone who created teams, motivated his fellow beings and used them for his desired result and success.
6. Take care of your team In a creative environment, it is important to protect one's team from the corporate politics. At time it becomes difficult, yet one should be committed to the welfare of his team.
7. Commitment As a leader one should never underestimate one's own ability to create a win-win situation; in fact such events are the outcome of one's commitment. For instance, if changes are required, the changes must be made and any resistance to change be removed by reasoning and persuasion.
8. Show you feelings The team needs to know the leader and his commitment towards the goal being pursued and that's why one's genuine interest must be evident before his team. It may be through a pleasant exchange of thoughts or ideas.
9. Devotion Devotion to duty is an important point for leadership. Remember that people watch their leaders all the time; hence one should be aware about these sensitive things amongst one's team members.
10. Develop talent and ambition This can be done by encouraging the teams, tell the team members to rethink where idea is not working. An important role must be given to the team members where creativity can be breathed. It helps their creative strings.
11. Positivity Positivity is a common factor among the leaders; they always inspire others through their positive approach, and they always believe that no matter how hard things may be, a brighter future is waiting for all those who sincerely make efforts to change their surroundings.
(The writer is an advocate and is currently working as an associate with Azim-ud-Din Law Associates Karachi)