Leadership's Role in Fostering Creativity and Innovation Report

This report examines the critical role of creativity and innovation in a competitive environment, particularly within a non-profit organization focused on supporting young artists. The author, who chaired a board meeting, highlights the importance of innovative strategies, such as social media promotion, to attract clients and talents. The report includes an interview with a project manager from a construction company, discussing leadership skills, decision-making, and the significance of experience and continuous learning in fostering creativity. The author reflects on the practical application of these concepts, emphasizing the value of critical thinking, communication, and problem-solving skills gained through the unit. The report concludes with advice for students, underscoring the importance of embracing change and developing expertise.

Innovativeness is the core idea to get succeeded in the fiercely competitive environment.
Innovativeness means incorporating a creative attitude in whatever you do (Moeran, 2016).
Most people think that being innovative is to always find for something new, however, creativity
does not only stick to finding new products but being creative in whatever you do.
Innovativeness can be brought in product, process, packaging, marketing, selling and even in
regular business functions (Dentchev, et al. 2016).
I work for a non-profit organization ‘Creative hands’ which provides a platform for young and
artistic minds to present their skills to the world. We provide training and support to those who
have inbuilt artistic abilities and are highly creative but wants little access to resources to show
up their talents. Our organization mainly work for those young children who are not so
economically sound and require a platform to groom their skills. By employing them we make
them learn new arts and helps them to earn a livelihood and make a career in the art industry.
Hence, it is crucial for us to be creative in whatever we do and to find the real artist from the
surrounding environment (Burns, 2016). Not only this, but our staff also needs to be highly
creative in thinking to find different ways to attract clients and retain them for the future.
This was the agenda of our10th-week board meeting, where I was selected to chair the meeting.
The main meeting aim was to devise creative ways to promote our idea in society and to attract
more people towards this work. All the members were asked to come up with their ideas about
how can we make aware artists and young talents about our organization and its work. Also, we
need ways to convince them to join the entity to excel them in their forte. Besides this, we also
need to attract larger clients for the company.
So during the meeting, we were successful enough in getting innovative ideas from the board
members to enhance the popularity of the institution. Some of which include: promoting through
social media, making volunteers who really work for deprived youngsters, conducting public
events to create awareness and convince talented artists to join the entity, taking help of local
NGO’s to find such talents and reach them and many more.
However, the best I liked among several ideas was to spread the word through social media.
Since I was the chairperson for the meeting, I decided to implement this idea because it is the
most cost-effective way to reach a large pool of audiences.
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Thus after the 10 week’s board meeting, I realized how important it is to be creative in whatever
we do. Also because the current market conditions are so dynamic and unpredictable one needs
to think ‘out of the box’ to bring differentiation.
Thus after this session, I understood the worth of creativity and though to learn more about it. As
such, I decided to gain more insights into this to make myself and my organization work more
creatively. Hence I started reading more about it and referred to a book named “The Art of
Creative Thinking: How to be innovative and Develop great ideas”, written by John Adair. After
reading these books and many similar ones I developed an understanding that creativity is a vast
concept and do not confine to a few things. We need to be very creative in every task that we
undertake be it personal or professional for bringing excellence in whatever we do.
Creativity in most cases in the inbuilt characteristic possessed by an individual, however, it can
be acquired as well with time if one really wants to do something unique and innovative
(Arbaugh, and Camp, 2017). Also being creative is highly necessary for the business that I have
been associated with. Our organization need to be very creative in designing new products to
entice our clientele. Also, there are people who can perform the same task in varied ways, thus I
truly believe that we must embrace change and motivate teams to come up with new ideologies
to make extreme differentiation.
Interview of a Professional:
This report is to summarize the interview that I conducted one of the managers of the
construction company to obtain his views over the significance of creativity while managing
things. I got an opportunity to interview Mr John, the project manager at John Holland
(LinkedIn, 2019). John Holland is a private organization which works in the field of
construction and infrastructure building. Mr John is working with John Holland from last five
years. Currently, he is the project head and manager of the projects team.
When he was asked to elaborate his work roles, he is the in charge of bringing and handling
client’s projects. His task is to attract local and international clients. Besides this, the main task is
to manage the work internally so that all the projects could be accomplished before targets. He
manages his team of engineers, architects, contractors and the marketing team. Besides this, he is
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also responsible to take reviews from quality teams to scrutinize the final product before it is
being delivered.
When I asked him what skills are required to take such a challenging role and develop the ability
to handle multiple tasks, he revealed that leadership skills are the key factor beyond all this. Not
only this is to make all the team members work collaboratively so that each of them can
understand their respective roles properly, but at the same time clear and precise communication
is also mandatory. He revealed that though the toughest task is to synchronise different
departments associated with a particular project, however removing communication barriers
have always helped him in reaching his set goals. Moreover being a manager he needs to take big
and small decisions each day. On this, he elaborated that before taking any decision it is crucial
to have complete knowledge about the issue. An uninformed decision is always risky and can be
adverse to the organization’s health.
Upon asking how he is so skilled in the tasks that he undertakes, he politely replied that
experience teaches everything. He revealed that the time when he was posted as a manager he
was skilled in his own roles but it was very difficult for him to manage others with different
mind-sets. With time and experience, he learned that innovativeness is crucial in whatever we do
(Nielsen, Byrge, and Lund, 2016). He stated that it is vital to remain creative in any profession.
Thus by developing new ideas for every new challenge he understood that any challenge can be
tackled with ease if one focusses on the root causes and finds solutions to them.
When Mr John was asked to rank himself on a scale of 1-10 where he rated himself at 7. Upon
asking the reason for that he said that he is a learner and needs to learn more. Besides, he stated
that nobody can be 100 per cent flawless while one should find out the weaknesses and keep
working on improving them.
When I asked him the areas which he finds most difficult, he replied that every task is
challenging for him, yet decision making is the most critical task he believes. Most of the time
while dealing with international clients he needs to take some big decisions which he thinks is
the most difficult and challenging. So for that, he takes a collaborative approach and engages his
team members as well, so that a well informed and robust decision can be taken due to the
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gathering of ideas from varying mind-sets. Although there are always chances of failure and at
times there are things which are uncontrollable for which one cannot do anything.
Finally, I asked him to put forward his suggestions for students like I, he confidently stressed that
newer generations must work upon gaining skills in whatever they do. They must try to bring out
expertise in every task to make is extraordinary. He also stated that communication is vital in the
marketing industry, hence we must focus on developing robust communication skills to remain
competitive and grow with time.
At last, I thanked him for all his support and ideas and suggestions. And I truly believe that his
experiences knowledge is definitely going to help fresh graduates like us.
Advice to the students who take up this unit in the upcoming semester:
Initially, when I quick started with this unit in my first semester I thought it will be a little bored
and I need to learn and understand theoretical perspective. I thought there will not be much to
gain practical understanding. However, to my surprise, I realized that this unit immensely helped
me gaining professional skills such as critical thinking, decision making, communication ways
and problem handling.
This unit is extremely helpful for new and fresh graduates to make them understand the
technicalities of the business world and gain a professional practical understanding of how the
industry works and what is needed to bring change. From the board meeting task, I understood
how these meetings are undertaken and what small things we need to keep in mind while
attending any such meetings. Eventually, this unit and the tasks included in it helped me groom
my abilities for my career and future growth
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References
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research directions. The Blackwell handbook of entrepreneurship, pp.308-328.
Burns, P., 2016. Entrepreneurship and small business. Palgrave Macmillan Limited.
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Nielsen, C., Byrge, C. and Lund, M., 2016. From Creativity to New Venture Creation: Exploring
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LinkedIn, 2019. John Holland. [Online] Accessed through< https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-
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