Here's how you can foster creativity and support your team members' ideas and initiatives.

I am a little concerned that some leaders give excessive emphasis on the diverse personal preferences of the employees rather than the professional performance/potential. For a successful deployment of inclusivity, the focus needs to be on the diversity in their professional competency like working for a different vertical, experience with an Non-profit organization, been in a different geography etc.

Diversity, not as it is understood on surface level these days—it’s about embracing a variety of perspectives and thinking styles. Watch out for biases and make a conscious effort to listen to those with viewpoints that differ from your own. Embrace their views, even if they challenge your own beliefs. Surround yourself with people who offer diverse opinions and experiences, as that's where real growth and innovation occur. It’s through these varied perspectives that we can uncover new ideas and drive meaningful progress.

Combining knowledge and skill is essential for effective leadership, but the true force multiplier is attitude. A positive, proactive attitude amplifies the impact of your knowledge and skills, enabling you to inspire and lead more effectively. Focus on developing a growth mindset and fostering an optimistic approach to challenges to maximize your leadership potential.

To harness the power of diversity effectively: Encourage team members to share their unique viewpoints. Value cognitive diversity, fostering different problem-solving approaches. Embrace these differences for innovative solutions. Recognizing diverse perspectives cultivates creativity and leads to the development of products and services that resonate with a wider audience, paving the way for sustainable growth and competitive advantage. Ready to champion diversity in your team? Connect with us!

Ideas flow freely only when the mind is able to think without the fear of being judged. Hence, it's important to create a space where the team members can feel free to share their thoughts. As a leader, one should not discourage any idea on its face..just allow the person to share and then choose what is in sync with the objective and discard the same. This will help others to come up with innovative ideas.

I assume 'Safe Space' means a place where new ideas are welcome. It should also be noted that creativity does not work where there is a timeline fixed. Leaders should make people feel improvements in small steps due to new ideas (creativity) are the best way forward.

Risk taking attitude can be built with not-so-critical aspects to start with. In one of the successful business communities that I know, business owners hand a small capital for their children for a year or so. They gradually increase the capital (equity) once the new entrepreneur knows the risk-reward paradigm adequately.

Encourage people to take those bold big leaps, because this is where the magic happens. It's about stepping out of your comfort zone and go after what you thought it wasn't possible.

Ensure your team has access to essential resources to explore and implement their initiatives effectively: Time: Allow dedicated time for creative processes, separate from regular tasks. Schedule brainstorming sessions and project development periods to enable uninterrupted focus. Budget: Allocate financial resources to support creative projects. This might cover costs for research, prototyping, or acquiring necessary materials. Training: Invest in training and development to equip your team with the skills needed to explore innovative concepts. Tools: Provide access to tools and technologies that facilitate creative work, such as software for design, collaboration platforms, or equipment for experimentation.

Celebrate your team's creative efforts, regardless of the result. Use formal rewards or simple gestures like shout-outs during meetings. This highlights the importance of creativity and inspires others to share their ideas. By acknowledging effort, you create a positive feedback loop, fostering a culture of innovation and appreciation.

Most of the time the leaders wait for a final outcome of a project or a process handled by the team member. This does not allow the leader to reflect on the decisions, ideas and effort made. Therefore, the leader should focus on the progress both in terms of ideas and efforts made and promptly appreciate. This way, the leader ensures that he earns the right to course correct when the direction of the client is not likely to yield the desired result.

In one of my client organizations, they have an extraordinary method of appreciating the efforts of all those who have gone an extra mile during the month. Names of all those who have contributed during the month are written on a chit and those whose name appears the maximum number of times receives gifts in the form of small plant pots being placed onto their desks. The person/s who have the maximum number of plant pots placed onto their table on the last day of each month is the winner and receive/s a gift voucher from the organization. This method has been highly successful in the organization thus aiding maximum unbiased contribution from every employee irrespective of their designation.

In one of my client organizations, they have a unique way of ensuring people take up learning seriously. Other than the regular workshops and trainings for soft skills etc, they have specific trainings/workshops for specific problems, which are mandatory for the team or the unit encountering the problem. Everyone including the team leaders have to mandatorily attend. During the training/workshop there are numerous activities which ensure that the participants come up with innovative solutions for which, through the activities, they are made to look for more related data, thereby contribute and brainstorm. The participants who contribute more, add more innovative solutions using relevant data are given a certificate and a gift voucher.

1. Creative thinking can be worked out also. It is not necessarily an inborn 'quality' as most of us think. 2. 'Being creative' just does not mean 'to think differently'. The new ideas should be of some real benefit to what we do or the way we do things. That is the difference between being creative and being innovative.

The best creativity and innovation come from a space of psychological safety, which happens best when teams are at play. It helps to create games that draw out the creativity of teams. Exercises like empathy maps, design challenges, and design post-mortems all help creatives develop stronger connections to the outcome they're serving in a way that builds their creative muscles.