The Creative Leader - Arsene Wenger

Arsène Wenger was born on 22 October 1949. He is best known as - and currently is - the manager of British football team Arsenal, which plays in the Barclays English Premier League. A very impressive thing about the great Wenger is that in the modern scene of football, where managers are regularly changed or sacked, he has managed to stay at the top of the Arsenal football club since 1996. Compared to most other clubs where their mangers stay in control for a short period of time. Wenger has maintained in the top managerial position for 17 years; which is a clear illustration of not only to the longevity of his leadership, his loyalty to the club but also to Arsenal's loyalty to its staff. Leaders are mainly highly intelligent in their field or mostly former players. As wenger is a great former player, he isn’t a know-it-all, he feels there is always more to learn and have a willingness to admit mistakes. It is evident that Wenger is a great manager as arsenal has managed to win 13 First Division and Premier League

From your reading “Managing for Creativity”, what are key components to enhance creativity? How do the teams compare?

In the context of creativity’s stated definition, we will proceed to group our arguments into three themes of factors: cognitive ability, expertise training, and environmental conditions. The human brain is highly adaptable and can continue to develop new cognitive abilities, even past adulthood (Norman, 2015). Proper cognitive expertise and training can help workers produce and operate in ingenious ways (Ginamarie, Lertiz & Mumford, 2004). Finally, the working environment can both motivate or stifle creative output. Managers can influence all three components: expertise, thinking skills, and motivation (Amabile, 1998).

One is called creative when you have the ability to think on your own. Someone who has an idea, method, or plan that is obscure and continues to press through society’s definition of ordinary. This is how I would summarize Hayakawa’s definition of being creative. Someone who envisions an idea, is confident with it, and is willing to risk it all to achieve the expected outcome. I will use three of Hayakawa’s criteria from his article to support my summarization of what it means to be creative.

“Understanding leadership in early childhood has been plagued by its confusion with the concept of management” (Rodd, 2013, p. 19). The quotation highlights the overlapping of different roles of leadership and management. It is true in respect that people misunderstand the true nature, roles and responsibilities of both the roles because the educational leaders play the role of manager in early childhood setting and the managers perform the duties of educational leader. The following essay will discuss the role of the leaders, which is different from the managers in early childhood settings. There will be discussion on the different skills and dispositions required to perform the role of a leader and a manager. There are different models and theories, which influence the way of working of the leaders and managers. First, the essay will explain the Collin’s level five leadership model; and Katz’s four development stages model followed by the Formal, Collegial and Cultural models of educational management in early childhood setting. Finally, the essay will compare and contrast the current theories of leadership; the charismatic theory, the transactional theory and the transformational theory of leadership. The different theories’ implication to the early educational settings will also be discussed through the essay.

Paulus & Nijstad (2003) defined creativity as “the development of original ideas that are useful or influential”(p.3). That is to say,

• Amabile: How to Kill Creativity? Harvard Business Review 1998 (course packet; writeup 1. For Feb 5)

The term creativity is used for the purpose of describing the ability that is concerned with the process of creating something new or valuable. This ability allows a person to surpass the rules, practices, methods, forms or similar kind of activities that the traditional society may be performing at that time. Creativity is one of the most important things that have allowed the people of the society to move forward and urge for development. All the development that has been made in various aspects of human life can be directly connected with the creativity. All the industry leaders of the world have secured this place because of the level of creativity and innovation that they showed. They used this creativity for creating something new that has allowed them to develop completely new methods for this purpose.

To make a business grow and achieve productive and efficient results you need to invoke creativity which has always been an essential business skill. Since long time creativity has been applied to a business world as companies seek to use it in all parts of the organization to make it gain more profits and to be exceptional from others. A business person has to find unique solutions every day and he has to know how to react to situation creatively. Richard Florida (2002) stated human creativity is the ultimate economic resource. The ability to come up with new ideas and better ways of doing things is ultimately what raises productivity and thus living

I believe creativity is one of the top qualities that born leaders posses, its the ability to tap into the subconscious to bring out great ideas. “Creative leaders have the ability to re-think their business models and come up with ideas to drastically change their enterprise”. (Stephen 2011) Although Creativity is considered as one of the most prominent qualities that great leaders possess, another key innate ability is Confidence. Confidence is among the traits of great leaders, confidence cannot be taught; confidence for most great leaders is inborn. Francisco Dao in his article wrote– “Without Confidence there is no leadership; leadership is about having the confidence to make decisions. If someone is afraid to make and commit to decisions, all of the communication and empowerment in the world won't make a squat of difference”. (Dao 2008) Another quality that great leaders are born with is Passion. Leaders always exhibit this quality in any area they find themselves. Being passionate about an idea, a project, a business is just learnt in the confines of the four walls of a classroom, it’s a trait that is inborn. “Passionate leaders spread passion to others

According to Pfeffer (cited in Whetten & Cameron, 2005) leading positive change is one of the most important influences in helping organisations perform well. Another strength that I have identified through completing the “how creative are you” assessment (Carlopio et al, 2005) is creativity, possibly due to my ability to consider things from different perspectives as indicated by my preference toward the “thinking” dimension in my MBTI profile.

According to Daly et al, (2009a) ‘ Managers must be able to cope with the concept of continual growth and change. This may generate excitement, but can also bring added pressure for managers as

Amabile, T. M. & Khaire, M. 2008, “Creativity and the role of the leader”, Harvard business review, vol. 86, no. 10, pp. 100.

Effective leaders need to be creative and innovative. Effective leaders need to understand that the blood of the organization which they are leading lays innovation and creativity (Swid, 2015). Creation of new ideas can result in programs which are superior to the already planned or established plans. The responsibility of the leadership is to engage appropriate people in the right times, to the appropriate degree but in creative manner. Employee creativity is also enhanced by leaders who are inspirational. Any business

In today’s knowledge-based economy, innovation has become the principal source of competitive advantages in global business; the success of firms now depends more on their intelligence capability – such as employee creativity – than traditional material assets (Amabile et al., as cited in Zhou, Zhang & Montoro-Sa ́nchez, 2011). The creative capability of individual and collective knowledge workers is the fuel that powers innovation in firms. While creativity leads to the production of new and useful ideas in any domain, innovation is the successful implementation of those creative ideas within an organisation (McLean, as cited in Zhou, Zhang & Montoro-Sa ́nchez 2011). In highly dynamic business environments innovation and creativity have become crucial for creating competitive advantages for the