Skip to main content

Cooperate, Collaborate, and Co-Inspire

Who is your favorite artist?

Unless you were an arts major, you probably named someone well-known like Picasso or Van Gogh. But there is a world of wonderful yet lessor known artists out there waiting for you to discover.

What does that have to do with leadership?

As an artist, I've learned that leadership is most effective when it is shared. When responsibility is part of the job description for each person on the team, the team does better. Leaders benefit from being creative. What could be more creative than the arts?

That doesn't mean that all leaders must be artists -- but it does mean that all leaders can benefit from learning from the creative approaches artists must take -- to create, to collaborate, to survive.

Here are my suggestions to explore this more:


  • visit a museum or gallery
  • go to a concert
  • see an unusual, independent film
  • walk thru the art section of a local fair or flea market
  • draw a picture you've never drawn before
  • pick out a tune on the next musical keyboard you see
Creativity is everywhere, waiting for you to make the most of it. Then, like an artist, your leadership can encompass some new qualities. A new spark and many new ideas become instantly available to creatively centered leaders. 

Lead like an artist today. 

The arts teach us that it is not necessary to compete with one another. We can cooperate, collaborate, and co-inspire.

Imagine the success you can create with that!

-- Douglas Brent Smith







Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Benefits of Supervisory Training

When was the last time you had any leadership training? How often do the supervisors in your organization get training? If you are like most organizations, it's never enough. Some teams go without any supervisory training at all and expect supervisors and managers to learn as they go, on the job. Unfortunately, while it is memorable to learn from your mistakes, it comes at a high cost. People get tired. People leave. Important accounts go away. Customers complain. And teams struggle without the skills and knowledge it takes to build cohesive teams that are capable of solving problems, improving performance and achieving goals. Admittedly, I can be expected to support training since I'm in the business. Still, take a closer look at your own leadership career and decide for yourself. Are leaders better off with more training and development or with less? Supervisory training can generate benefits that pay off long after the training is over. Here are just a few of the things sup...

Leadership Decisions

Decision making is never a burden when leaders share the load.  Leadership decisions can be made in many ways. Often, the situation determines which type of method a leader uses to make a decision. Some ways include: Decide and announce : the leader does all the work, makes the complete decision, and hopes that everyone follows. This method is useful in a crisis (like a fire fighter captain at a fully involved blaze) and less useful in other situations (for example, picking an organizational strategy for next year). Consult and then decide : the leader talks to key people, gather information, and makes the decision. Sometimes that decision is close to what others have recommended, and sometimes it isn't. This method is useful when the decision is complicated and technical in an area where the leader has authority but not all of the expertise. The method fails if the leader consults the wrong people or disregards all advice without ever explaining the rationale for the f...

High Performance Leaders Inspire

What if we lived like a teacher teaching the unknown, reaching the loved, and preaching possibility? What if we did our best to bring out the best in everyone we encountered? It may not be possible to do that all of the time, but it is certainly possible to do that more often. Let's do that more often! -- doug smith  

Enjoy Your Stories Developing

Have you ever noticed that something tough you once lived through, perhaps endured with some hardship, can much later become an amusing story, even a funny one? It reminds me of a quote from one of my favorite people, a famous story teller, entertainer, musician, and comedian - Steve Allen. He said: Tragedy plus time equals comedy. (the quote has often been attribute to other people, but I'm on a bit of a mission to clarify attribution whenever possible and I'm fairly certain Mr. Allen was the first to say it. Here's the whole account, from an excellent source for clarifying attribution): When I explained to a friend recently that the subject matter of most comedy is tragic (drunkenness, overweight, financial problems, accidents, etc.) he said, “Do you mean to tell me that the dreadful events of the day are a fit subject for humorous comment? The answer is “No, but they will be pretty soon.” Man jokes about the things that depress him, but he usually waits til...

Not Too Many Goals

How many goals should you have? Is there a limit? I've known people who said that they had a hundred goals. They were working their way thru the list and checking them off one by one. Good for them. I  could never do that. It's too many. How do you even keep that many straight? How do you build energy for them? Some people call a list like that a bucket-list. If that's what it is, it isn't so much a list of goals as plans for experience. That's very different. Goals require work. Goals require attention. Goals require a level of focus seldom afforded anything else. The discipline that takes limits the capacity anyone has for setting goals. We can only do so much. Of course, we aspire to do more. Of course we put lots of stretch into our goals and our list of goals. But, we can only do so many. I can't tell you what that number is. I find that 5 goals a day is a good number for me. Five achievable goals for each day and another 3 - 5 major goals that ca...

Forget What You Know?

Does it ever make sense to forget what you know? What if what you know is certain and true? What if you simply believe it to be true, but beyond your knowledge it isn't true at all? Sometimes learning requires the suspension of what we think is true. We need to be able to entertain a contradiction or paradox long enough to find a new perspective. Maybe we will change our mind, maybe we won't, but we give it air time. We let it breathe. We expand our world of possibilities just long enough to see if we're missing something important. Creatives are constantly willing to forget what they think they know to learn something far more useful. Something far more magical. Something far more brilliant. And, possibly something far more true. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes it does not and we are free to hold to what we already believe. But without trying, without the willingness to suspend judgement for long enough to see anew -- how will we ever know? -- Douglas Brent...

Move from "Me" to "We"

by David Spiegel "The secret to success is to know something nobody else does." -- Aristotle Here is another guest entry from my friend, David Spiegel. I especially like how he ties this together with one of John Maxwell's Words of The Day. As you read this, think about how you can move in the direction of turning what you do best from a "me" effort to a "we" movement. A s I was stretching this morning waiting for my trainer to finish up with his 7:30 clients, I had the opportunity to look around the gym. When I started working with Cris, the head trainer,he had appointments set pretty much back to back for himself.  There was another trainer who I saw occasionally. Today, there was Cris working with "the Killer Couple" (these two really work hard!). There were also 3 or 4 other trainers working with clients. Some individuals and some working with two clients at the same time.There was a buzz of activity as these tr...

Compassionate Competition

Does business feel like dog eat dog? Does competition drive you and others to the edge of aggressive, gnawing, clawing feelings that leave you drained? Or, do you thrive on it? We do live in a competitive culture. When jobs took on a new scarcity it forced many people to view their opportunities from a limited point of view. If opportunities are limited, don't I have to act aggressively to seize those that come my way? Don't I have to defeat the competition convincingly and swiftly? At what cost? Not at the cost of our values. Not at the cost of our integrity. Not at the cost of our kindness. Fiercely competing does not force you to compromise your values.  Fiercely competing does not force you to treat people unkindly. It is possible to compete compassionately. Strive for your best outcome. Challenge other in your field of influence. Move forward assertively. AND act in ways that show kindness, consideration, and strength of character. At the end of the big gam...

To Stop Lying To Yourself

Do you tell the truth no matter what? It's only possible to tell the truth once you stop lying to yourself. Why would you ever lie to yourself? We do it all the time: little rationalizations to make us feel better. Sometimes we lie to ourselves about our intentions. For example, every time we say "I'll try to do that" we're lying to ourselves. Try is not a commitment. Trying is not doing. To avoid the rationalization, make the strong commitment that you will do something. You do know whether or not you can, so the commitment is all in your will. When else do we lie to ourselves? Sometimes our limiting beliefs lie to us about our capabilities. Rather than constantly testing ourselves, we may give in to the belief that a task or project is too big. In that way, our own lies (because it's never too big if you really aim to do it) stand in our way, paper barriers to our success that hold with the strength of concrete. It doesn't need to be like that....