Lessons for New Creative Leaders

It starts before you get start.

What do you want me to change? What do you want me to protect? What do you want me to focus on now? *Inspired by Jack Welch

People crave leadership. Vision comes later.

Criticism without showing a standard forward is simply lazy leadership.

Don’t send company-wide ones.

Maybe they wanted your job. Maybe they were inspired by change. Who cares. It’s natural. Recruit new.

Read analyst reports, set up news alerts. Know as much as you can about every industry in which you’re working.

Avoid travel away from the ofﬁce where possible in the ﬁrst weeks, or provide video and phone contact during.

It doesn’t have to be big, but it showsyou are capable of some kind of success.

Avoid weekend contact. This sets boundaries for later.

How are things going? you’ll be asked in the elevator. Have something insightful to say back.

Read briefs in advance. Learn about the product on your own. Don’t expect things to be handed to you.

Spend time with younger staff. Take them to events. (You’ll work for them one day anyway.)

Look for warts. Praise good stuff.Encourage humbleness. Discourage excuses.

Don’t take the ﬁrst opinion you hear as fact. There’s usually much more to the story.

A little venting, sure.But you’re not the chief complaint ofﬁcer. (Unless you are.)

People can tell who you talk to — and who you don’t.

Give it constantly, speciﬁcally, privately.

Don’t overly expense things or show off your position. It’s amateur and gross.

Ask clients how the presentation really went.Ask people what is in their way of greatness.

Selling ideas is a craft. Show people how to do it.

Write very detailed descriptions of events you go to so people feel like you were there for all of them.

Speak well of management even if you don’t agree with everything. You’re part of the problem so ﬁx it.

You’re new, and it shows humbleness. It also gets stuff done faster.

You’ll get signed up for stuff. Limit it as much as possible. Committees suck time and life out of anything new.

Make a big deal out of great work. But don’t celebrate everything.

Every minute you’re in a meeting, you’re not creating something new. Keep them to 45 minutes or less.

Plans and promises are boring.Be judged by actions and do the same with your people.

http://theadbuzz.com/2011/02/voices-what-i-wish-someone-had-told-me/

It should change based on what you learn & ﬁgure out.

For questions + commentary on creative management: Mat Zucker www.matzucker.com Twitter: @matzucker

by Mat Zucker on May 07, 2011