CREATIVE LEADERSHIP: HOW TO BUILD TRUST, INVITE CHALLENGE AND MAKE THE CALL

CREATIVE LEADERSHIP

Creating the conditions for people to do their best work.

When it comes to showrunning, directing, producing or being number one on the call sheet, craft and skill are essential. But they are not enough. The biggest requirement is leadership.

Leadership is a skillset developed over the long term. Without it, a project brimming with creative potential, can flounder and fall apart. Leadership is about people, and about developing the capacity to build trust with those people.

Think of a project where people are there simply for the pay and one where they are connected to something deeper: a shared vision, a sense of purpose and the real feeling that their contribution matters. Humans who trust in a leader and the vision and have bought in will go to the ends of the earth for it. Those motivated solely by pay have limits.

Creative leadership is, to a large extent, emotional management: managing your own responses, recognising what is happening in the room, and creating enough stability for people to remain clear, honest and engaged under pressure.

It means giving the team a voice rather than issuing diktats, while still keeping everyone moving towards the creative vision. It means knowing when to listen, when to challenge, when to compromise and when to make the final decision.



That may sound lofty. So how do we put it into action?

Here are some principles to take into the next production, as well as everyday life:

Giving everyone a voice - The Ability to Speak Freely

Let’s be clear from the start, that giving people a voice, does not mean giving everyone veto power. A production would fall apart under those circumstances. What it means is creating a culture where people can speak freely, challenge an idea and offer alternatives. And then trusting the leader to make the final decision so that everyone is aligned toward the vision.

That they can do this freely without repercussion is the key. Cultures in which this is not just a talking point but a value that is practiced, enables team members to have a real stake. By raising concerns, offering ideas without fear of humiliation or rejection, everyone buys into making this project the best it can possibly be. Because people feel heard. And when people feel heard, they buy in and invest deeper than any pay package or compensation can.

Let the best idea win

Which leads us to principle 2. If people are free to share without repercussion, and people buy in, that means creativity is going to scale and the collective brain trust of the team will come up with lots of ideas. Some won’t work or be practical, but others will prove to the the killer idea. Only an ego bound leader would reject it because it did not come from them. Being a leader means having the ability to recognise a better idea and let go of theirs. The strongest creative leaders are secure enough to be changed by the room.

Practice Emotional management

An integral part of 1 and 2 is understanding your own self-regulation and emotions. Leaders have to notice, both in themselves and their team, when pressure, fear and ego may be affecting decision making and the atmosphere.

Aligned with this is developing one of the most most important human skills: recognising our own projections. When we are projecting those feelings, thoughts and beliefs that we don’t want to acknowledge in ourselves onto someone else. It wreaks havoc in relationships and on projects. Leadership begins with self-awareness. Practice listening, take responsibility for your impact and learn to communicate without unnecessary aggression or defensiveness. If you lead by example, the team will follow.

Self work:being able to practice non-violent communication

Along with the awareness of step 3, comes the self work required to develop into the leader we are capable of. That means recognising our strengths, areas we need to work on and develop and growing into ourselves.

Part of leading requires the ability to hold more than one competing view at the same time. Instead of dogmatism and “this is how it’s always done” leaders need to acknowledge and sit with competing viewpoints. Non-violent communication can be a useful framework for this.

Non-violent communication is the ability to acknowledge someone else’s point of view, without agreeing or disagreeing with it, and to make them feel that they have been heard and understood. A leader needs to do this with their team, some of whom will disagree with each other, and have the humility to step back and engage in this way. Otherwise the tyrant can emerge, which crushes creativity and team dynamics.

Make the decision

Having implemented all these steps, a collaborative process still needs clarity. Once people have been heard, someone has to decide—and take responsibility for that decision. Leadership is not about having the loudest voice. It is about creating the conditions for good work and being willing to carry the consequences.

And this becomes the heart of the matter. As a leader you need to manage two points of conflicting tension: openness and authority. We must create the space where people can speak truthfully and disagree, while also providing the confidence, direction and decisiveness that a production requires. Time is money and multiple decisions are required hourly to get from cameras rolling on day 1 to the end of principal photography and onto post. 



The above framework provides a rough structure of how to use the friction inherent in any team endeavour, so that ultimately the characters and story are best served on their way to the audience.

BOOK OF THE MONTH

DARE TO LEAD

- BRENÉ BROWN

This month’s book of the month fits in nicely with our discussion on Creative leadership in learning of the month.

Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead argues that leadership requires brave work, tough conversations and the willingness to show up fully. That is extremely relevant to creative productions, where the leader is constantly managing not only logistics and artistic decisions, but also pressure, ego, fear and trust.

Brené Brown argues that effective leadership is not about projecting certainty, authority or invulnerability. It is about having the courage to be honest, curious and emotionally present—especially when the work involves conflict, uncertainty or difficult decisions.

Brown’s central claim is that courageous leadership is not an innate personality trait. It consists of four teachable, observable skillsets:

1. Rumbling with vulnerability

Vulnerability is not weakness or oversharing. It is the willingness to acknowledge that something matters, that you may not have all the answers, or that a conversation feels difficult.

She uses the word “rumble” to describe entering a challenging conversation with curiosity, honesty and a commitment to stay engaged rather than becoming defensive or avoidant. As a leader this means entering into problems with the idea that we don’t have all the answers, and that being ok. The leaders that lead well, the smartest people in the room are the ones that regularly answer “I don’t know” to a question.

In practice this looks like:

Admitting “I’m not certain this is working yet. What am I missing?” or “I felt defensive in that meeting, so I want to revisit the conversation properly.”

The problem in autocratic environments is that truth and honesty get lost, which lead to massive problems down the line. A creative leader practicing vulnerability makes its easier for their team to admit problems early, challenge an idea or propose a better solution.

2. Living into your values

It’s so easy for a company to put up a plaque or include in their prospectus a section about “Our Values”. Modern Rituals even has a page (www.modernrituals.art/values) Far harder, and requiring more courage is to translate that into observable behaviour.

So, similar to our learning above in principle 1 - Giving People a Voice, The Ability to Speak freely, if you have this as a value, do people actually feel able to disagree with you? It doesn’t mean you don’t have a vision and boundaries and a definiteness of plan. But can your culture tolerate disagreement?

Similarly if you you claim to value respect, do you remain respectful when the schedule is collapsing?

Brown’s point is that values become meaningful only when they guide decisions under pressure. The leader must “walk the talk” rather than using values as corporate branding speak only.

3. Braving trust

Trust is built through small, consistent actions rather than grand declarations. Brown presents trust as something created through behaviours such as reliability, clear boundaries, accountability, confidentiality, generosity and the willingness to admit mistakes.

An important note is that Trust is not the same as being liked. A leader can be warm and empathetic while still setting limits, making unpopular decisions and holding people accountable.

So on a production, trust might look like:

- Giving clear notes rather than allowing uncertainty to spread.

- Doing what you said you would do.

- Protecting confidential conversations.

- Owning a mistake without shifting blame.

- Allowing a better idea to replace your own and then publicly acknowledging the person or team that made that happen rather than taking credit as the leader

4. Learning to rise

“Learning to rise” relates to resilience: what happens after failure, conflict, criticism or disappointment?

Brown argues that people often create stories about difficult events, and those stories can become more damaging than the original event (the two arrows concept in Buddhism). A leader’s task is to examine the story, separate facts from assumptions and decide how to respond constructively.

For example:

“The producer rejected the scene” is a fact.

“They don’t trust my ability” may be an interpretation.

Learning to rise does not mean pretending that failure is painless. It means processing it honestly, taking responsibility where necessary and returning to the work with greater clarity. It’s the image of the phoenix rising from the ashes. Getting good with using failure as feedback to iterate and grow.

All these combined can be the difference between a team that follows instructions because you are the head who is paying them, and one that feels genuinely connected to and invested in the work and willing to go to the ends of the earth for you.

It is possible to give people a voice and still be definite and final in decision making. It’s people, not the cameras, not the props that at the end of the day will make a project fly or come crashing to the ground.

The Takeaway

The book encourages leaders to:

- Stay curious instead of pretending to have all the answers.

- Have difficult conversations rather than avoiding them.

- Make expectations and boundaries clear.

- Treat empathy and accountability as complementary.

- Create environments where people feel safe, seen, heard and respected.

- Recognise when fear or ego is influencing their behaviour.

- Use power with people rather than hoarding power over them.

Watch an interview with Edward Norton where he talks in detail about many of these concepts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ5Fy4uSrH4