The 3 Habits Of Highly Creative Leaders
Imagine driving on a highway. You know the way to your destination but accidentally take a wrong exit, which brings you to a strange new road. You panic, make a U-turn, and, in an attempt to return to the highway, immediately look for the last point you recognize.
Sound familiar? That’s what most of us would probably do. We freak out when we get lost. As soon as we don’t know where we are and where we’re heading, our strong attraction to certainty and familiarity takes over. We almost can’t help it, we’re hardwired this way. The brain craves certainty—it’s a product of our evolution, a part of our survival instinct.
Almost universally, uncertainty sparks feelings of fear, confusion, or unease. Even if these feelings are not necessarily the product of a real threat, we feel them anyhow. To protect ourselves from the uncertain, we will often avoid engaging in new activities, especially when the rules are unclear and the outcomes are unpredictable.
For the most part, we prefer repeating things we already know will work well. But our attraction towards the familiar is actually the way we end up not only blocking creativity for ourselves but also risking our career.
Read more: How to Leverage Uncertainty to Think Creatively
How to Trigger Creative Thinking
Instead of giving in to certainty, we can make the conscious choice to push ourselves to drift along on an unknown path and get lost for a while, even though this will probably feel uncomfortable. By remaining in the area of the unknown, we might just find an interesting new path leading to our desired destination—one we never would’ve found while driving on the main road.
“…what exists withing the area of “not knowing” is so much greater and more exciting than anyhting any one of us knows.”
Whether you are an entrepreneur, engineer, marketer, or product manager—allowing yourself to endure not knowing will provide you the space to entertain an increasingly broader range of options for longer periods of time. The more possibilities the greater your chances of making unlikely, unique, and creative connections.
I know this is easier said than done. Here are three steps you can apply in your own work today.
Habit 1: Adopt a scientist’s mindset
One of the trickiest things about enduring uncertainty is that we must be sincerely open to the possibility we might be wrong. This is an utterly unnatural state because—let’s face it—we all prefer being right! Yet being wrong is not always a negative as long as we learn something critical in the process. Learning by seeking out experts who can disagree with you and present evidence and logic you were not aware of. Accepting the risk of being wrong and failure is a necessary component to sharpening our creativity.
Read more: How to Trigger Creative Thinking by Using the Pre-Mortem Technique
Habit 2: Look at fear as a positive indicator
Fostering our creative thinking isn’t about being confident all the time. It’s about acknowledging our self-doubt, fear, and anxiety, then pushing past them and continuing to take action. When we hear the voice of angst shouting, it’s a sure sign that we’re leaving our comfort zone—the area of certainty—and moving toward our more creative mental states. In essence, our fear is a positive indicator, one that we must learn to embrace, not shirk away from.
Habit 3: Suspend judgment
We expect specific results and become used to doing work in a specific way. But if you want to open up to more possibilities, pay attention to what happens when the unexpected occurs. When the unexpected happens, most of us instinctively try to go back and fix something until we get the outcome we initially wanted. Then we continue on our safe, familiar, and merry way.
Instead, use this moment to stop and observe the mistake in order to trigger your interests and provoke new ideas. Don’t be tempted to judge if its good or not, just observe and sense it if sparks any points of curiosity in you.
Ask: What would happen if I didn’t “fix” the mistake?
What would be the most natural next step? Instead of comparing our results to what we had in mind initially, think about what this results can become if you decide to adopt it.
This is when unexpected thinking arises. Unexpected beauty, unexpected connections, and even unanticipated success.
Embracing the Unknown
Everyone can foster creativity by harnessing uncertainty. It turns out that the main distinguishing aspect between those who can access their creativity relatively easily and those who have a bit more difficulty doing so is not creativity itself, but the ability to endure uncertainty along with the flexibility to reframe thoughts.
I’ve developed a general principle for myself that anyone can use: When it seems like the best option is clear, I’ll force myself to look for alternatives and list the pros and cons for each. I encourage everyone to try this; it will allow you to trigger uncertainty immediately and will force you to use your creativity to find a new route.
When you do find that new route, don’t be surprised by the warm rush that will follow—that’s your brain flooding you with endorphins. This is your body’s way of rewarding you for triumphing over risk and navigating through the world of the uncertain. Over time, as you practice enduring uncertainty, your brain will reward you more and more often; you’ll learn to love getting lost.