problem solving creative leadership

Problem-solving in Leadership: How to Master the 5 Key Skills

The role of problem-solving in enhancing team morale, the right approach to problem-solving in leadership, developing problem-solving skills in leadership, leadership problem-solving examples.

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What’s the Role of Problem-solving in Leadership?

• Getting to the root of the issue:  First, Sarah starts by looking at the numbers for the past few months. She identifies the products for which sales are falling. She then attempts to correlate it with the seasonal nature of consumption or if there is any other cause hiding behind the numbers. 
• Identifying the sources of the problem:  In the next step, Sarah attempts to understand why sales are falling. Is it the entry of a new competitor in the next neighborhood, or have consumption preferences changed over time? She asks some of her present and past customers for feedback to get more ideas. 
• Putting facts on the table:  Next up, Sarah talks to her sales team to understand their issues. They could be lacking training or facing heavy workloads, impacting their productivity. Together, they come up with a few ideas to improve sales. 
• Selection and application:  Finally, Sarah and her team pick up a few ideas to work on after analyzing their costs and benefits. They ensure adequate resources, and Sarah provides support by guiding them wherever needed during the planning and execution stage. 
• Identifying the root cause of the problem.
• Brainstorming possible solutions.
• Evaluating those solutions to select the best one.
• Implementing it.

• Analytical thinking:   Analytical thinking skills refer to a leader’s abilities that help them analyze, study, and understand complex problems. It allows them to dive deeper into the issues impacting their teams and ensures that they can identify the causes accurately. 
• Critical Thinking:  Critical thinking skills ensure leaders can think beyond the obvious. They enable leaders to question assumptions, break free from biases, and analyze situations and facts for accuracy. 
• Creativity:  Problems are often not solved straightaway. Leaders need to think out of the box and traverse unconventional routes. Creativity lies at the center of this idea of thinking outside the box and creating pathways where none are apparent. 
• Decision-making:  Cool, you have three ways to go. But where to head? That’s where decision-making comes into play – fine-tuning analysis and making the choices after weighing the pros and cons well. 
• Effective Communication:  Last but not at the end lies effective communication that brings together multiple stakeholders to solve a problem. It is an essential skill to collaborate with all the parties in any issue. Leaders need communication skills to share their ideas and gain support for them.

How do Leaders Solve Problems?

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Creativity and the Role of the Leader

• Teresa M. Amabile
• Mukti Khaire

Your organization could use a bigger dose of creativity. Here’s what to do about it.

Reprint: R0810G

In today’s innovation-driven economy, understanding how to generate great ideas has become an urgent managerial priority. Suddenly, the spotlight has turned on the academics who’ve studied creativity for decades. How relevant is their research to the practical challenges leaders face?

To connect theory and practice, Harvard Business School professors Amabile and Khaire convened a two-day colloquium of leading creativity scholars and executives from companies such as Google, IDEO, Novartis, Intuit, and E Ink. In this article, the authors present highlights of the research presented and the discussion of its implications.

At the event, a new leadership agenda began to take shape, one rooted in the awareness that you can’t manage creativity—you can only manage for creativity. A number of themes emerged: The leader’s job is not to be the source of ideas but to encourage and champion ideas. Leaders must tap the imagination of employees at all ranks and ask inspiring questions. They also need to help their organizations incorporate diverse perspectives, which spur creative insights, and facilitate creative collaboration by, for instance, harnessing new technologies.

The participants shared tactics for enabling discoveries, as well as thoughts on how to bring process to bear on creativity without straitjacketing it. They pointed out that process management isn’t appropriate in all stages of creative work; leaders should apply it thoughtfully and manage the handoff from idea generators to commercializers deftly. The discussion also examined the need to clear paths through bureaucracy, weed out weak ideas, and maximize the organization’s learning from failure. Though points of view varied, the theories and frameworks explored advance the understanding of creativity in business and offer executives a playbook for increasing innovation.

The Idea in Brief

In today’s innovation-driven economy, understanding how to generate great ideas is an urgent managerial priority. And that calls for major doses of creativity. But many leaders assume creativity is too elusive and intangible to be managed.

It’s true that you can’t manage creativity. But you can manage for creativity, say innovation leaders and experts who participated in a 2008 Harvard Business School colloquium. Among their recommendations for fostering the conditions in which creativity flourishes:

• Stop thinking of yourself as the wellspring of ideas that employees execute. Instead, elicit and champion others’ ideas.
• Open your organization to diverse perspectives—by getting people of different disciplines, backgrounds, and areas of expertise to share their thinking.
• Know when to impose controls on the creative process (such as during the commercialization phase) and when not to (during early-idea generation).

The Idea in Practice

To enhance organizational creativity, consider these practices:

Tap Ideas from All Ranks

Elicit ideas from people throughout your organization. Google’s founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page tracked the progress of ideas that came from them versus ideas that bubbled up from the ranks—and discovered a higher success rate in the latter category.

Motivate people to contribute ideas by making it safe to fail. Stress that the goal is to experiment constantly, fail early and often—and learn as much as possible in the process. Convince people that they won’t be punished or humiliated if they speak up or make mistakes.

Further engage people by being an appreciative audience. Asking questions about a project and providing even a word of sincere recognition can be more motivating than money.

Open Your Company to Diverse Perspectives

Innovation is more likely when diverse people come together to solve a problem. Even within the mind of an individual, diversity enhances creativity. Individuals who have multiple social identities—for instance, Asian and American, female and engineer—display higher levels of creativity when problems require them to draw on their different realms of knowledge.

The lesson? Avoid suppressing parts of people’s identity. For example, craft a culture where female engineers can feel comfortable wearing feminine clothing.

Protect Creatives from Bureaucracy

As a fresh idea travels through an organization toward commercialization, powerful constituencies often beat it into a shape that conforms to the existing model. Protect those doing creative work from this hostile environment by clearing paths for them around obstacles.

Know When to Impose Controls—and When Not To

The early discovery phase of the creative process is inherently confusing and inefficient. So don’t impose efficiency-minded controls during that phase. Instead, apply them when the game has moved from discovery to reliability and commercialization.

Know which phase you’re in, and ensure that people with the right skills (such as ability to manage the handoff to the commercialization phase) are involved in the right stages.

Create a Filtering Mechanism

For every idea with real commercial promise, there are dozens that aren’t worth pursuing. How to winnow out the bad from the good? Have people from a variety of disciplines, functions, and viewpoints act as filters. Also consider using business “accelerators” (outside companies that test product ideas) to gauge their potential.

♦ BLOG: Join the conversation with Teresa Amabile about the challenges of managing creativity.

• TA Teresa M. Amabile is a Baker Foundation Professor at Harvard Business School and a coauthor of The Progress Principle . Her current research investigates how life inside organizations can influence people and their performance, as well as how people approach and experience the transition to retirement.
• MK Mukti Khaire ( [email protected] ) is an assistant professor at Harvard Business School. The authors gratefully acknowledge the participants in the colloquium “Creativity, Entrepreneurship, and Organizations of the Future,” whose contributions form the substance of this article.

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• > The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity across Domains
• > Creative Leadership

Book contents

• The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity Across Domains
• Copyright page
• Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Part I Creativity and Domain
• Part II Creativity in the Traditional Arts
• Part III Creativity in the Sciences
• Part IV Creativity in Business
• 18 Studying Creativity across Different Domains
• 19 The Relationship Between Marketing and Creativity
• 20 Creative Leadership
• 21 Creativity in Business and Technology
• 22 Creativity in Design
• 23 A Minimalist Model for Measuring Entrepreneurial Creativity
• Part V Newer Domains for Creativity Research
• Part VI Creativity in Everyday Life
• Part VII Conclusion

20 - Creative Leadership

How Problem Solving, Decision Making, and Organizational Context Influence Leadership Creativity

from Part IV - Creativity in Business

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2017

Leadership and creativity are broad, complex domains. Creativity in the leadership domain is often examined in terms of how the leaders influence the creativity of their subordinates, but there is less focus on how the leaders are creative themselves. This chapter examines a range of individual differences, managerial decision making, and organizational factors that could influence a leader’s creativity. Individual differences such as personality traits, emotional intelligence, creative cognitions, and expertise could be important factors that influence the leader’s creativity. Further, we integrate research on decision-making styles and information processing to further explore potential influences on leader creativity. Although the individual differences and managerial decision-making factors are important, leadership and creativity in an organization do not happen without the influence of environmental factors. We explore how resources, organizational strategy, and differing levels of leadership (e.g., the leader-follower dynamics) influence leader creativity. By combining multiple research lines, we hope to offer a more robust examination of a perceived scarcity of research into how leaders can be creative.

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• Creative Leadership
• By Kevin Mitchell , Roni Reiter-Palmon
• Edited by James C. Kaufman , University of Connecticut , Vlad P. Glăveanu , Universitetet i Bergen, Norway , John Baer , Rider University, New Jersey
• Book: The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity across Domains
• Online publication: 15 September 2017
• Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316274385.020

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The Critical Leadership Skill of Creative Problem-Solving

Dr. paul schempp.

• June 1, 2017

There is a common misconception that leaders merely manage creative efforts; rather than become active participants in the process. Recent research indicates quite the opposite (Friedrich, Mumford, Vessey, Beeler, & Eubanks, 2010).  Leaders, it seems, play a crucial role in the creative problem-solving process.  The leadership skills they possess can significantly affect the quality of the innovative outcome. Consequently, as organizations increasingly depend on new products and processes to fuel their future, creative problem-solving stands as a critical leadership skill.

For leaders, the creative thought process is sequentially different than for individual contributors. Specifically, successful leaders initiate the process by soliciting and evaluating others’ ideas for solving a particular problem.  The clearer the problem to be solved, the easier for team members to produce potential solutions and a leader to evaluate the quality of those solutions. Seeing and clarifying problems, either solo or in collaboration thus becomes the first challenge to a leader’s creative skillset.

The second progressive task is identifying potential solutions to be analyzed and evaluated.  Evaluating proposed solutions normally ignites the leader’s creative thinking and they begin to generate additional ideas, discover alternative perspectives, and redefine the original problem. Sharing their alternatives, insights, and additions stimulates team members to continue solution generation and development. At this phase, solution standards are appraised, potential solution outcomes predicted, old ideas revised and new ideas put forth by leaders and contributors collectively.

As potential and probable solutions surface, the third challenge for the leader becomes identifying and encouraging buy-in by the multiple stakeholders within the organization. As a result, the leader not only evaluates the potential logistical implications of solution implementation but also the social and political implications as well. Consequently, a leader needs to be skilled in evaluating creative ideas, as well as forecasting the varied outcomes associated with the different areas of the organization involved in the innovation.

A leader’s creative problem-solving skills vary, however, depending on the type of problem being solved.  Evaluative and judgment skills are in high demand if the problem requires a process innovation.  When the solution is intended to result in a product innovation, a leader’s skill in generating clear problem definitions and workable solutions will influence the ultimate success of the innovative outcome.

For an organization to grow and prosper, fresh products and efficient processes are constantly needed. What worked yesterday is not guaranteed to work tomorrow.  Leaders with creative problem-solving skills have the ability to stimulate, challenge and inspire others to continually pursue prominent problems and devise creative solutions to feed future organizational growth and success.

Our guest blogger is Professor Dr. Paul Schempp , a professional speaker managed by The Persimmon Group Speakers Agency . Dr. Schempp directs a research laboratory at the University of Georgia where he has spent more than two decades studying the characteristics and development of expertise and human performance. Paul has dedicated his professional life to helping people reach their full potential through award-winning research, testing what it takes to achieve greatness.

He is the author of six books including the award-winning, 5 Steps to Expert: How to Go from Business Novice to Elite Performer . 

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Creative Thinking: Innovative Solutions to Complex Challenges

Learn how to grow a culture of creativity to innovate competitive solutions.

October 16, 2024

8:30 AM – 4:30 PM ET

2 consecutive days

$2,990 Programs fill quickly — free cancellation up to 14 days prior

Registration Deadline

October 8, 2024

Overview: Creative Thinking Skills Course

The tech breakthrough that makes smartphones irrelevant, a new viral ad campaign, your company’s next big revenue generator — ideas like these could be sitting in your brain; all you need are the creative thinking skills and strategies to pull them out.

This interactive program focuses explicitly on the creative thinking skills you need to solve complex problems and design innovative solutions. Learn how to transform your thinking from the standard “why can’t we” to the powerful “how might we.” Crack the code on how to consistently leverage your team’s creative potential in order to drive innovation within your organization. Explore how to build a climate for innovation, remove barriers to creativity, cultivate courage, and create more agile, proactive, and inspired teams.

You will leave this program with new ideas about how to think more productively and how to introduce creative thinking skills into your organization. You can apply key takeaways immediately to implement a new leadership vision, inspire renewed enthusiasm, and enjoy the skills and tools to tackle challenges and seize opportunities.

Innovation experts Anne Manning and Susan Robertson bring to this highly-interactive and powerful program their decades of experience promoting corporate innovation, teaching the art of creative problem solving, and applying the principles of brain science to solve complex challenges.

Who Should Take Creative Thinking Skills Training?

This program is ideal for leaders with at least 3 years of management experience. It is designed for leaders who want to develop new strategies, frameworks, and tools for creative problem solving. Whether you are a team lead, project manager, sales director, or executive, you’ll learn powerful tools to lead your team and your organization to create innovative solutions to complex challenges.

All participants will earn a Certificate of Participation from the Harvard Division of Continuing Education.

Benefits of Creative Thinking Skills Training

The goal of this creative thinking program is to help you develop the strategic concepts and tactical skills to lead creative problem solving for your team and your organization. You will learn to:

• Retrain your brain to avoid negative cognitive biases and long-held beliefs and myths that sabotage creative problem solving and innovation
• Become a more nimble, proactive, and inspired thinker and leader
• Create the type of organizational culture that supports collaboration and nurtures rather than kills ideas
• Gain a practical toolkit for solving the “unsolvable” by incorporating creative thinking into day-to-day processes
• Understand cognitive preferences (yours and others’) to adapt the creative thinking process and drive your team’s success
• Develop techniques that promote effective brainstorming and enable you to reframe problems in a way that inspires innovative solutions

The curriculum in this highly interactive program utilizes research-based methodologies and techniques to build creative thinking skills and stimulate creative problem solving.

Through intensive group discussions and small-group exercises, you will focus on topics such as:

• The Creative Problem Solving process: a researched, learnable, repeatable process for uncovering new and useful ideas. This process includes a “how to” on clarifying, ideating, developing, and implementing new solutions to intractable problems
• The cognitive preferences that drive how we approach problems, and how to leverage those cognitive preferences for individual and team success
• How to develop—and implement— a methodology that overcomes barriers to innovative thinking and fosters the generation of new ideas, strategies, and techniques
• The role of language, including asking the right questions, in reframing problems, challenging assumptions, and driving successful creative problem solving
• Fostering a culture that values, nurtures, and rewards creative solutions

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Anne manning, susan robertson, certificates of leadership excellence.

The Certificates of Leadership Excellence (CLE) are designed for leaders with the desire to enhance their business acumen, challenge current thinking, and expand their leadership skills.

This program is one of several CLE qualifying programs. Register today and get started earning your certificate.

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How to solve a problem like a leader.

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Often leaders will think they are driving a problem-solving culture by insistent, or even just encouraging, team members to utilize the tools and templates of problem-solving.

However, most organizations then respond with either sterile and uninspired efforts or at worse, malicious compliance. Shaping the culture of good problem-solving behaviors will naturally encourage people to pick up those same tools with the right intent.

After nearly three decades of coaching at every level, from entry-level employees to experienced CEOs of multi-billion-dollar corporations, author and advisor Jamie Flinchbaugh has worked with over 300 companies worldwide in Lean transformation, including Intel, Harley-Davidson, Crayola, BMW, and Amazon. In his new book, People Solve Problems: The Power of Every Person, Every Day, Every Problem , Flinchbaugh shifts the conversation and argues that organizations focus too much on problem-solving tools and templates and miss other critical elements that make a more significant difference: getting the right behaviors and building the right capabilities.

Problem-solving is not usually completed in a straight line, with fixed questions and predetermined ... [+] answers, say experts

Problem-solving is not usually completed in a straight line, with fixed questions and predetermined answers. Instead, it requires learning, agility, curiosity, and intuition. “This is certainly the case as problems are not puzzles. Whereas a puzzle may have a correct answer, a problem is often unbounded, requiring firstly, the need to understand its scope before exploring solutions, more accurately, different solutions”, says Lebene Soga of Henley Business School. While each problem may not be unique, each requires its own line of inquiry. And each situation solver cannot just follow a script but must leverage their strengths and overcome their weaknesses. “The formulaic approaches to problem-solving may be useful elsewhere but not when we are confronted with wicked problems.”

Attempting to solve or “solutionize” wicked problems requires an understanding of complexity, risks, and more importantly, people,” Soga adds. This is where the right coaching becomes necessary as you do not want leaders rushing to solve problems which often leads to more significant problems. The flexibility and personal engagement that coaching enables to make it the most powerful leverage point for improving problem-solving.

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In a similar vein, the head of the management discipline at the University of Newcastle Australia, Ashish Malik, reflecting on his two decades of research on the global information technology industry, noted, “the essence of leadership is to take decisions on a range of problems—which may vary on a continuum from simple to complex, for some there are known solutions, while for others there is no known solution or a script ready. Therefore, decision-making is a courageous exercise, and for the first-time leaders, it is a watershed moment.” Leaders often employ many systematic and less planned tools and techniques to solve complex problems, such as using evidence-based and metricized approaches to solving known and unknown issues. In his research, Malik, Sinha, and Blumenfeld found that the use of Six Sigma or Lean Six Sigma methodologies was very prevalent in offshore outsourcing call centers , BPOs , and IT Industry in India as a useful tool for approaching complex tasks operational and leadership problems.

Problem-solving is not a recipe with known inputs, established steps, and a predictable outcome. Curiosity allows us to enter problem-solving as a learning process because we must close our knowledge gaps before closing our performance gaps. Intuition is helpful because when trekking through uncharted territory, as most problem solving is done, it requires making essential adjustments such as when to go slower, when to start over, and even where to start. Analytical and data-driven methods are critical but insufficient when navigating such a journey as problem-solving.

In summary, excellent and practical tools help us perform better in most domains, and problem-solving is no exception, however, much like many of those exact domains, the skill, capability, and talent that we bring to the task far outweigh those tools in their impact on performance.

Disclosure:  One source mentioned in this article, Lebene Soga, is employed by the same University as this article’s author, though both reside on different campuses

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Creative Leadership Skills That Drive Change

• Gerard J. Puccio - Buffalo State - State University of New York
• Marie Mance - Buffalo State - State University of New York
• Mary C. Murdock - Buffalo State - State University of New York
• Description

Creativity—today's most important leadership skill

Successful leadership today relies heavily on an individual's ability to effectively respond to and proactively drive change—in short, to be creative. This book helps readers enhance their creative talents and employ these skills as a leader, providing a concrete set of principles and procedures based in creativity that, once internalized, will forever change how we lead.

See what’s new to this edition by selecting the Features tab on this page. Should you need additional information or have questions regarding the HEOA information provided for this title, including what is new to this edition, please email [email protected] . Please include your name, contact information, and the name of the title for which you would like more information. For information on the HEOA, please go to http://ed.gov/policy/highered/leg/hea08/index.html .

For assistance with your order: Please email us at [email protected] or connect with your SAGE representative.

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Introduces some worthwhile concepts and frameworks that could help future entrepreneurs

Creative Leadership helps the reader getting a better understanding of the way in which creative processes can be supported through communicative actions. It presents important frameworks and allows the reader to create an understanding of how to work with and have an effect on individuals, teams and organisational processes for achieving creative outcomes.

Great text book. Combines theory and praxis very well. Very pleased with this text book and will keep using.

excellent book for my MSc class on leadership and innovation

I am going to adopt this book as recommended reading for students in the third year of a Bsc. in Engineering, following a module in professional skills with emphasis in leadership, creativity and problem solving

Not as centered around Leadership and Change as needed.

Very good book. Students have been enjoying the book and the activitiess

Other texts are better fit for the course.

Choose a different book that you had on leadership (Northouse, 9781452203409).

Excellent text, we have used it as an essential reading for the Perspectives of Creative leadership module for the last 3 years

Key features

• Demonstrates that creativity is a process that leads to change and shows how leaders help individuals and organizations grow by deliberately facilitating productive change
• Utilizes the Creative Problem Solving (CPS) process to provide the thinking skills – diagnostic, visionary, strategic, ideational, evaluative, contextual, and tactical – and procedures that leaders can use to enhance their effectiveness in creating and managing change
• Offers case studies to demonstrate the Creative Problem Solving process in action , with specific focus given to becoming a creative change leader, building a creative culture, and fostering a creative climate.

New to the Second Edition

• Includes an expanded discussion of the important role creativity plays in leadership , and how the concept of creative leadership fits into emerging views of leaders
• Provides a more extensive account of the skills necessary to be an effective creative leader , and discussion of how the concepts of management, creative management, and creative leadership differ
• Presents a broader range of historical and contemporary examples, including Google, Blockbuster, General Motors, and McDonalds, to illustrate important aspects of creative leadership
• Offers enhanced graphics throughout to bring CPS to life visually , including a clear representation of the Thinking Skills Model that is central to CPS

Sample Materials & Chapters

Table of Contents

1. Change, Leadership, and Creativity

2. Creative Problem Solving

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Creative Problem Solving

December 10, 8:30 am-3:30 pm.

In the current volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world, solving problems in unique ways and thinking outside of the box are becoming increasingly important for an organization’s success.

Description

This highly-interactive, fun, and fast-paced session provides a framework for understanding and applying tools to meet real business needs. You will walk away from this session with increased confidence to generate creative ideas, techniques to recognize/replace unproductive thinking patterns, and a methodology to foster creative potential and innovation.

Participants are encouraged to think about real-life organizational problems and bring these situations to the program to discuss and brainstorm together. By walking through these problems together, participants will learn the steps to creatively solve problems.

Finally, participants will complete an assessment prior to the program to discover their natural tendencies when thinking creatively and where they can shift their attention to yield better results.

Appropriate for any professional who wants to enhance their creative problem-solving skills.

Participants will walk away with these skills:

• How to define and unleash creativity
• Understand the myths of creativity
• Learn to identify problems with effective brainstorming
• Gain skills to strengthen creativity
• Capture ways to think differently
• Learn The Three-Legged Stool of Innovation
• Tackle actual organizational problems
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• Contracting for Freelancers: Building Client Relationships
• Managing Ongoing Client Relationships as a Freelancer
• Pricing and Charging for Freelancers
• Invoicing for Freelancers: What, When, and How
• Contingency and Disaster Planning for Freelancers
• Travel and Freelancing
• Portfolio Working
• Working From Home
• Top Tips on Working from Home
• Change Management
• Understanding Change
• Creating a Compelling Vision
• Communicating the Vision
• Implementing Change
• Managing Resistance to Change
• Convince Your Employees to Embrace Change
• Personal Change Management
• Facilitation Skills
• Career Management Skills
• Persuasion and Influencing Skills
• Developing Persuasion Skills
• Transactional Analysis
• Dilts' Logical Levels

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Leadership Skills

The question of what makes a good leader—in other words, what are leadership skills —is widely debated. It is clear that the ability to lead effectively relies on a number of key skills, but also that different leaders have very different characteristics and styles.

There is, in fact, no one right way to lead in all circumstances, and one of the main characteristics of good leaders is their flexibility and ability to adapt to changing circumstances. Leadership skills are highly sought after by employers as they involve dealing with people in such a way as to motivate, enthuse and build respect.

Here at SkillsYouNeed, you'll find lots of information that can help you to understand and develop your leadership potential.

Whether or not leadership itself can be taught, there is no question that there are a number of core skills that most good leaders have. These skills can be learnt like any others.

Skills Good Leaders Need

There are a number of broad skill areas that are particularly important for leaders.

These include strategic thinking, planning and delivery, people management, change management, communication, and persuasion and influencing.

1. Strategic Thinking Skills

Perhaps the most important skill a leader needs — and what really distinguishes leaders from managers — is to be able to think strategically.

This means, in simple terms, having an idea or vision of where you want to be and working to achieve that.

The best strategic thinkers see the big picture, and are not distracted by side issues or minor details. All their decisions are likely to be broadly based on their answer to the question ‘ does this take me closer to where I want to be? ’

Of course as well as being able to create a compelling vision, they must also be able to communicate it effectively to their followers, which is partly why communication skills are also vital to leaders.

See our pages on:

• Strategic Thinking Skills ,
• Creating a Vision , and
• Communicating a Vision .

Creating a vision is not simply a matter of having an idea. Good strategic thinking must be based on evidence, and that means being able to gather and analyse information from a wide range of sources. This is not purely about numbers, but also about knowing and understanding your market and your customers, and then—and this is crucial—using that information to support your strategic decisions.

For particular types of analysis that may be helpful in gathering information, see our pages on SWOT Analysis , PESTLE Analysis , Porter's Five Forces , The Boston Matrix and The Ansoff Matrix , The McKinsey 7 S Model of Organisational Alignment , Value Chain Analysis , Scenario Analysis , and Understanding Game Theory .

Some strategic thinking skills are more specific: for example, in marketing, where you may find the 7 Ps and customer segmentation are vital tools.

2. Planning and Delivery Skills

While it is important to be personally organised and motivated as a leader—and see our pages on Time Management and Self-Motivation for more about these areas—it is perhaps even more important to be able to plan and deliver for the organisation.

These areas are key management skills, but the best leaders will also be able to turn their hand to these. The best vision in the world is no good without the plan to turn it into reality.

Alongside strategic thinking, therefore, go organising and action planning, both essential for delivery of your vision and strategy. Project management and project planning are also helpful skills for both managers and leaders. Good risk management is also important to help you avoid things going wrong, and manage when they do.

See our pages:

• Risk Management .

Good leaders also often have very strong facilitation skills , to manage groups effectively.

Leaders also need to be able to make good decisions in support of their strategy delivery, and solve problems. With a positive attitude, problems can become opportunities and learning experiences, and a leader can gain much information from a problem addressed.

• Decision Making and
• Problem-Solving

for more about these essential areas.

3. People Management Skills

Without followers, there are no leaders. Leaders therefore need skills in working with others on a one-to-one and group basis, and a range of tools in their armoury to deal with a wide range of situations. Many of these skills are also vital for managers, and you can find out more about these in our page on Management Skills .

In particular, leaders are expected to motivate and encourage their followers, both directly (see our page on Motivating others ) and by Creating a Motivational Environment .

One of the first skills that new leaders need to master is how to delegate. This is a difficult skill for many people but, done well, delegation can give team members responsibility and a taste of leadership themselves, and help them to remain motivated. See our page on Delegation Skills for more.

There are further challenges to delegating work within a team, including balancing workloads, and ensuring that everyone is given opportunities to help them develop. See our page on Overseeing Work for more.

Leaders and managers both need to understand how to build and manage a team. They need to know how to recruit effectively, and bring people ‘on board’ through induction processes. They also need to understand the importance of performance management, both on a regular basis, and to manage poor performance.

• Induction, Orientation and ‘Onboarding’ Skills

There are a number of issues that new and existing managers commonly struggle with. For more about these, read our page on Avoiding Common Managerial Mistakes and Confidentiality in the Workplace .

4. Change Management and Innovation Skills

Change management may seem like an odd companion to people management and communication, but leadership is often particularly important at times of change.

A leader needs to understand change management in order to lead an organisation through the process. For example, change management requires the creation and communication of a compelling vision. It also requires the change to be driven forward firmly, and leadership to make it ‘stick’ if the organisation is not to revert within a very short period.

Our pages on Change Management explain more about this, including:

• Overcoming Resistance to Change

One particular element of change management is innovation. Good leaders know how to innovate, and also how to encourage innovation in others. Our page on Innovation Skills explains more.

5. Communication Skills

While communication skills are important for everyone, leaders and managers perhaps need them even more. These skills are general interpersonal skills, not specific to leadership, but successful leaders tend to show high levels of skill when communicating.

Good leaders tend to be extremely good listeners , able to listen actively and elicit information by good questioning . They are also likely to show high levels of assertiveness , which enables them to make their point without aggression, but firmly. They know how to build rapport quickly and effectively, to develop good, strong relationships with others, whether peers or subordinates. These skills come together to help to build charisma , that quality of ‘brightness’ which makes people want to follow a leader.

Leaders also need to know how to give others their views on personal performance in a way that will be constructive rather than destructive, and also hear others’ opinions of them. See our page on Giving and Receiving Feedback for more.

They are usually very good at effective speaking , equally skilled at getting their point across in a formal presentation or Board meeting, or in an informal meeting or casual corridor conversation. They have also honed their ability to communicate in difficult situations , usually by practice over time.

6. Persuasion and Influencing Skills

Finally, one particular area of communicating that is especially important for leaders is being able to persuade and influence others.

Good leaders use a range of tools for this. For more, see our pages on Persuasion and Influencing , and Developing Persuasion Skills .

Leaders also need tools to help them understand the way that others behave, and create positive interactions. As a first step, it may be helpful to understand more about emotional intelligence —another vital quality for leaders to possess—but there are a number of other tools that may also be useful, including Transactional Analysis , and Myers-Briggs Type Indicators .

Further Reading from Skills You Need

The Skills You Need Guide to Leadership eBooks

Learn more about the skills you need to be an effective leader.

Our eBooks are ideal for new and experienced leaders and are full of easy-to-follow practical information to help you to develop your leadership skills.

Many people consider leadership to be an essentially work-based characteristic. However, leadership roles are all around us and not just in work environments.

Ideally, leaders become leaders because they have credibility, and because people want to follow them. Using this definition, it becomes clear that leadership skills can be applied to any situation where you are required to take the lead, professionally, socially, and at home in family settings. Examples of situations where leadership might be called for, but which you might not immediately associate with that, include:

• Planning and organising a big family get-together, for example, to celebrate a wedding anniversary or important birthday;
• Responding to an illness or death in the family, and taking steps to organise care or make other arrangements; and
• Making decisions about moving house, or children’s schooling.

In other words, leaders are not always appointed, and leadership skills may be needed in many circumstances.

With apologies to Shakespeare, we might say that “ some are born leaders, some achieve leadership, and some have leadership thrust upon them ”.

But what exactly is a leader?

A leader can be defined fairly simply as ‘ a person who leads or commands a group, organisation or country ’.

This definition is broad, and could include both formal and informal roles—that is, both appointed leaders and those who emerge spontaneously in response to events.

In recent years, considerable evidence has emerged that the strongest organisations and groups tend to permit and actively encourage each member of the group or organisation to take the lead at the appropriate point. Organisations and families with particularly controlling leaders, by contrast, tend to be fairly dysfunctional.

Leadership, therefore, is in practice fairly fluid: leaders are made by circumstances. The crucial issue is that people are prepared to follow them at the right moment.

There is more about this in our page on What is a Leader?

People also struggle with the concept of how being a leader is different from being a manager. You may have heard the idea that ‘leaders do the right thing, and managers do things right’. This is a fairly delicate distinction, and many leaders are also managers (and vice versa). Perhaps the key difference is that leaders are expected to create and communicate a compelling vision, often associated with change. Managers, on the other hand, are perhaps more often associated with maintaining the status quo.

Our page on ‘ Leadership is not Management ’ provides more discussion and ideas about this.

Developing Leadership

Many people wonder if leadership can really be taught.

People with vested interests (academics and those offering leadership training or literature of some sort) are convinced that it can. Many successful leaders, however, have never had any formal training. For them leadership is a state of mind, and it is their personalities and traits that make them successful leaders.

There is, clearly, a balance to be struck between these two positions.

There is no question that some people are intrinsically more drawn towards leadership roles than others. However, it would be nonsense to suggest—although this has been mooted in the past—that only people with certain physical or personal traits could lead. For example, it has clearly been proven that being male, or being tall, does not of itself make someone a better leader, although many leaders are both male and tall.

See our page Leadership Trait Theory for more.

It seems most likely that leadership requires certain skills. Some people will acquire these more easily than others.

You can of course learn about effective leadership skills and practices but being able to implement them yourself may require an altogether different set of skills and attitudes. The question “ Can leadership be taught? ” has no simple answer and we do not want to argue for one side or the other, but rather keep an open mind on the subject and provide information about the skills good leaders need.

Our page on Top Leadership Skills You Need may provide a useful starting point if you wish to develop your leadership skills.

One of the most important aspects of leadership is that not every leader is the same. Of course we have all heard jokes about ‘mushroom’ leadership (keep them in the dark and feed them manure) and ‘seagulls’ (swoop in, squawk, and drop unpleasant things on people) but, joking aside, there are many different styles of leadership.

Different leadership styles are appropriate for different people and different circumstances, and the best leaders learn to use a wide variety of styles.

There are many different models of leadership style, but perhaps one of the best-known is Daniel Goleman’s Six Leadership Styles. This is almost certainly one of the models that is most strongly-rooted in research, which may explain some of its popularity.

Our page on Leadership Styles sets out that Goleman identified six styles, which he labelled:

• Coercive, or commanding – ‘do as I say’
• Pace-setting – ‘do as I do, right now’
• Authoritative – ‘come with me’
• Affiliative – ‘people come first’
• Democratic – ‘what do you think?’
• Coaching – ‘try it and see’

What Sort of Leader are You?

Take our quiz - What Sort of Leader are You? to discover which leadership styles you use and which may need further development.

You may then want to see our page on Developing Your Leadership Style for more about how to improve the styles in which you are weaker.

Entrepreneurship, Self-Employment and Freelancing

Entrepreneurship is often linked to change management and, likewise, requires leadership skills. The skills required for setting up your own business, however, are not exactly the same as for leading a large organisation.

Freelancing is becoming a very significant part of developed economies. In the UK there are over 2 million freelancers who generate a combined £109 billion a year. (According to The Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed ).

In the US as many as 55 million people work as freelancers (35% of the working population) contributing $1.4 trillion to the economy. It is predicted that freelancers will soon become the workforce majority.

India, Canada, Australia and New Zealand also have large self-employed and freelance economies.

For more about working for yourself, and how to develop the skills required, see our pages on Entrepreneurship, Self-Employment and Freelancing .

The Skills You Need Guide to Self-Employment and Running Your Own Business

If you are thinking about running your own business, or already do so, but feel that you need some guidance, then this eBook is for you. It takes you through self-employment in easy steps, helping you to ensure that your business has more chance of success.

The Skills You Need Guide to Self-Employment and Running Your Own Business is the guide no new or aspiring entrepreneur can afford to be without!

Based on our popular self-employment and entrepreneurship content.

A wide range of skills…

There are, by definition, a huge number of skills that may be useful to leaders.

The skills outlined here are perhaps the most important, but others may also be helpful. The best leaders know that they still have much to learn, and continue to try to develop a wide range of skills all the time. Browse our A-Z list of Leadership Skills for more ideas.

Continue to: What Sort of Leader Are You? Personal Development

Lean Events and Training / Events / Managing to Learn

Managing to Learn

An introduction to a3 leadership and problem-solving..

Available Dates

Online August 5, 2024 - September 16, 2024: 12:00pm - 2:00pm ET

In-Person October 2, 2024 - October 3, 2024: 8:00am - 4:00pm ET

Coach-Led Online Course and Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan

Why you should attend

Learn how to use the A3 Methodology to solve important business problems. An optional one-on-one coaching package is also available for online course only.

In-Person 2-Day Course Oct 2-3: $1,599 Early bird price* $1,999 Regular price *Early bird expires August 23 for October session.

Select from available dates

• August 5, 2024 - September 16, 2024
• October 2, 2024 - October 3, 2024

Today’s unprecedented challenges require superior problem-solving skills not only from you as a leader but everyone you manage.

We’ve taken the unmatched A3 problem-solving process described in  Managing to Learn , the award-winning, best-selling workbook by management expert and former CEO John Shook, and put it online with live instruction.

This comprehensive training will teach you how to use the potent A3 methodology, based on the proven scientific method of plan-do-check-act (PDCA), to address an important business problem within your organization.

Learning Objectives

What makes the A3 problem-solving approach so powerful is that it is a complete process — a way of thinking, leading, communicating, learning, getting things done, and developing an entire organization of problem solvers.

• Select, define, clarify and investigate a real problem from work.
• Clarify problem situations and define problems as gaps in performance.
• Visualize work processes and focus on the problems in work methods that are affecting performance.
• Investigate and confirm underlying causes and analyze barriers to improvement
• Identify, evaluate, and lead in the selection of countermeasures.
• Lead planning for implementation of countermeasures and follow-up to resolve problems in execution for organizational learning.

What’s Included?

• 14 hours of live, online interaction or 16 hours of hands-on, in-person interaction
• Feedback from facilitators and peers.
• Assignments between live sessions to begin applying the lessons and complete your A3.
• Opportunities to practice discrete skills with live feedback.

Optional One-on-One Coaching Sessions for Online Course

Achieve an even deeper level of learning by taking personal coaching sessions with the class instructor.

These optional, half-hour sessions happen at three critical points as you create an A3 in the workshop:

• completion of the problem situation/current situation section;
• completion of the analysis section and whole left side;
• creation of recommended countermeasures and an implementation plan at the start of the right side.

Personal coaching gives you individual “just-in-time” assistance on your challenges in a private, completely safe online space to share and ask questions.

One-on-one coaching with the instructor will increase your professional skills and value to the company. And all three sessions are only $499.

Buy One-on-One Coaching »

Who Should Attend

• Managers, supervisors or executives who want to develop the structured problem-solving, hypothesis-testing, and fact-based, decision-making skills of teams
• Continuous improvement or change management professionals involved in leading major change improvement initiatives
• HR professionals who wish to develop a curriculum and teach introduce structured problem solving and fact-based decision-making skills within their organization

Group Discounts

Register three or more students from your organization and save 12.5% off every registration. This discount will be automatically applied at checkout when you register your group.

Technology Used 

• Communication Channel:   All our documents and assignments will be hosted on a browser-based platform. By logging onto our e-learning website, you will be able to view all related materials, announcements, and zoom links.  
• Zoom : We will host our live meetings on zoom. You will receive an invitation with the meeting link.  

Cancellation Policy

You can cancel your registration for online/live-streaming workshops two weeks before the course’s start date for a full refund. A cancellation occurring within two weeks of the workshop dates will be subject to a $350 fee. Once you have attended a workshop session, you cannot cancel your registration. If you need to cancel, you can do so through your confirmation email from ‘The LEI Events Team’ or email  [email protected]. 

You can cancel your registration for in-person workshops four weeks before the course start date for a full refund. A cancellation occurring within four weeks of the workshop dates will be subject to a $350 fee. Cancelling less than two weeks prior to workshop start is subject to no refund. To cancel, please call LEI at (617) 871-2900 or email [email protected].

Schedule Overview – Remotely

The 7 sessions are hosted over 7 weeks with one to two hours of assignments in between. There are optional coaching sessions available for online courses for an additional $499 (email [email protected] to inquire).

June 10 – July 22, 2024 Course All sessions hosted 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM ET and instructed by Karen Gaudet

• Monday, June 10
• Monday, June. 17
• Monday, June 24
• Monday, July 1
• Monday, July 8
• Monday, July 15
• Monday, July 22

August 5 – September 16, 2024 Course All sessions hosted 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM ET and instructed by Lavon Medlock

• Monday, August 5
• Monday, August 12
• Monday, August 19
• Monday, August 26
• Monday, September 2
• Monday, September 9
• Monday, September 16

Schedule Overview – In-Person

October 2-3, 2024 In-Person Course All sessions hosted 8:00 AM – 4:00 PM ET and instructed by Eric Ethington

Eric Ethington

Senior Coach and Chief Engineer Product and Process Development Lean Enterprise Institute President, Lean Shift Consulting

Eric has distilled his passion for and knowledge of lean thinking and practice in product and process development, nurtured over 30 years of work experience, into The Power of Process: A Story of Innovative Lean Process Development (2022). Before founding Lean Shift Consulting and becoming a coach and program manager at LEI in 2016, he […]

Lavon Medlock

Lavon Medlock has spent over two decades enhancing leaders’ skills in problem-solving and coaching. Skilled in a variety of continuous improvement methods, she has trained leaders in creating effective daily management systems, deployed an integrated facility design approach to new construction projects like a 90,000-square-foot patient tower, and enhanced operations across different sectors.  With a […]

Karen Gaudet

Senior Coach, Lean Enterprise Institute

Karen has over 30 years of experience leading, training, and developing the capability of team members and executives in rapid-growth environments. Most recently, she’s coached clients in various industries as they adopt lean thinking and practices. They include Microsoft (data center construction), Legal Seafood (hospitality); TriMark (distribution); Abiomed (medical research and device manufacturing), and the […]

Senior Coach and Chief Engineer, Strategy Lean Enterprise Institute

During his extensive career, Mark has led lean transformations and coached executives in various companies and business sectors. Clients include GE Appliances and Ingersoll Rand (manufacturers); Michigan Medicine and Mt. Sinai (healthcare systems); Turner Construction; Kroger (retail); Legal Seafood (hospitality); and Microsoft (software).   As LEI’s chief engineer, strategy, Mark leads the development of new learning […]

David Verble

Lean Coach, Lean Enterprise Institute Partner, Lean Transformations Group

A performance improvement consultant and leadership coach since 2000, David has been an LEI faculty member for 17 years. Recognized as one of the first Toyota-trained managers to bring A3 thinking from Japan to the United States, he has conducted A3 problem-solving and leadership programs for 30 years. Overall, his work focuses on supporting clients […]

Location: Oakland University 318 Meadow Brook Rd Rochester, MI 48309  

Suggested Nearby Hotels:  

• Embassy Suites by Hilton Auburn Hills 2300 Featherstone Road, Auburn Hills, MI 48326 This hotel is located approximately 3 miles from Oakland University (~7 minute drive).     
• SpringHill Suites Detroit Auburn Hills 4919 Interpark Dr., Orion Township, MI 48359 This hotel is located approximately 4 miles from Oakland University (~10 minute drive).     
• Holiday Inn Express & Suites: Auburn Hills 3990 Baldwin Road, Auburn Hills, MI This hotel is located approximately 6 miles from Oakland University (~7 minute drive).     

Nearest Airports:  

• Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW) ~46 miles to Oakland University, Rochester, MI  

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June 25, 2024 | Coach-Led Online Course

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The Future of People at Work Symposium 

September 06, 2024 | Coach-Led Online Course

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Design Thinking and Innovation

Key concepts, who will benefit, aspiring or current innovation managers, entrepreneurs, product managers, developers, and marketers.

What You Earn

Certificate of Completion

Boost your resume with a Certificate of Completion from HBS Online

Earn by: completing this course

Certificate of Specialization

Prove your mastery of entrepreneurship and innovation

Earn by: completing any three courses within this subject area to earn a Certificate of Specialization

Content Week - Clarify: Empathy and Understanding

• An Introduction to Innovation
• Clarify Through Observation
• Insights and Problem Framing
• The Right Enviroment for Creativity

Featured Exercises

Project week – clarify.

• Project Instructions

Content Week - Ideate, Part 1: Tools for Generating Ideas

• Establishing Focus with Design Principles
• The Ideation Process: Getting Started with SIT
• More SIT Tools for Ideation
• Open-Ended Approaches to Generating Ideas
• Review of Project Work

Content Week - Ideate, Part 2: User Values and Behaviors

• Design Heuristics for Generating and Refining Ideas
• Designing for Behavior Change

Project Week - Ideate

Content Week - Develop: An Experimentation Mindset

• Idea Selection and Evaluation
• Defining and Refining Your Prototype Plan
• Prototyping: From Exploration to Validation
• Leading Concept Development

Content Week - Implement: Communication and Structure

• Overcoming Developer and User Bias
• Strategies for Communicating Value
• Managing an Innovation Culture

So You Want to Be an Entrepreneur: How to Get Started

Our difference, about the professor.

Srikant Datar Design Thinking and Innovation

Dates & eligibility.

No current course offerings for this selection.

All applicants must be at least 18 years of age, proficient in English, and committed to learning and engaging with fellow participants throughout the course.

Learn about bringing this course to your organization .

Learner Stories

Design Thinking and Innovation FAQs

Could you tell me a little more about the ai course assistant chat bot.

You can think of the beta version of the Design Thinking and Innovation AI Course Assistant chat bot in two ways: like a virtual Teaching Assistant who can help you consolidate and confirm your understanding of course concepts, and as a virtual Learner Success Assistant who can help you stay on track with completing the coursework in a timely fashion. When you are finding a particular concept difficult to master, or would like additional examples of a theory, try asking the bot your question in the same way you would phrase it to a human TA. If you have a question pertaining to where or how to submit certain assignments, or one relating to deadlines or time estimates, you can also express those in a similar fashion. Please note that no preexisting familiarity or experience with generative AI is necessary or assumed to use the bot and, while we encourage you to engage with the bot and share your candid feedback on your experience, a lack of engagement with the bot will not adversely impact your eligibility for a certificate of completion.

What are the learning requirements in order to successfully complete the course, and how are grades assigned?

Participants in Design Thinking and Innovation are eligible for a Certificate of Completion from Harvard Business School Online.

Participants are expected to fully complete all coursework in a thoughtful and timely manner. This will mean meeting each week’s course module deadlines and fully answering questions posed therein. This helps ensure participants proceed through the course at a similar pace and can take full advantage of social learning opportunities. In addition to module and assignment completion, we expect you to offer feedback on others’ reflections and contribute to conversations on the platform. Participants who fail to complete the course requirements will not receive a certificate and will not be eligible to retake the course.

More detailed information on course requirements will be communicated at the start of the course. No grades are assigned for Design Thinking and Innovation. Participants will either be evaluated as complete or not complete.

What materials will I have access to after completing Design Thinking and Innovation?

You will have access to the materials in every prior module as you progress through the program. Access to course materials and the course platform ends 60 days after the final deadline in the program.

At the end of each course module, you will be able to download a PDF summary highlighting key concepts used throughout the course. At the end of the program, you will receive a PDF compilation of all of the module summary documents. We hope the module summary documents will serve as a helpful resource after you finish the course.

How should I list my certificate on my resume?

Once you've earned your Certificate of Completion, list it on your resume along with the date of completion:

Harvard Business School Online Certificate in Design Thinking and Innovation [Cohort Start Month and Year]

List your certificate on your LinkedIn profile under "Education" with the language from the Credential Verification page:

School: Harvard Business School Online Dates Attended: [The year you participated in the program] Degree: Other; Certificate in Design Thinking and Innovation Field of Study: Leave blank Grade: "Complete" Activities and Societies: Leave blank

Description: Design Thinking and Innovation is a 7-week, 40-hour online certificate program from Harvard Business School. Design Thinking and Innovation will teach you how to leverage fundamental design thinking principles and innovative problem-solving tools to address business challenges and build products, strategies, teams, and environments for optimal use and performance.

The program was developed by leading Harvard Business School faculty and is delivered in an active learning environment based on the HBS signature case-based learning model.

What is the project?

Beginning in Module 2 of Design Thinking and Innovation, you will apply the tools you learn in the course to an innovation problem that is important or interesting to you, or you can use a provided scenario. In subsequent modules, you will use your earlier responses to build on your innovation project and make each phase of design thinking relevant to your own work.

Do I need to collaborate with others to complete the project?

No, each individual submits their own work in Design Thinking and Innovation, and all project work can be submitted without sharing it with others in the course. You are encouraged to share with others and ask for feedback, but collaboration isn’t necessary to advance through the course.

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