Creativity ranks as the number one most important leadership quality for business success, according to a new study by IBM. The study is based on personal interviews with some 1,500 corporate and public CEOs across 60 nations and 33 industries. The table below (via Fast Company) summarizes the key results of the IBM research.
Fast Company quotes Steven Tomasco, a manager at IBM Global Business Services, being surprised by this new finding, noting that it’s “very interesting that coming off the worst economic conditions they’d ever seen, [CEOs] didn’t fall back on management discipline, existing best practices, rigor, or operations. In fact, they [did] just the opposite.” Indeed!
May 18th, 2010 at 10:39 pm
This is a great set of stats! As a teacher it helps justify my emphasis on creativity in the classroom. Thanks!
May 19th, 2010 at 8:07 am
Thanks for refocusing our thinking. “Creativity” as a topic of discussion in the business world has fallen out of favor recently, though for no good reason. As you argue here, it’s vital to business success.
March 7th, 2011 at 9:13 pm
Obviously.. all the other traits can be taught and people can learn such things step by step.
Creativity is different and it just comes naturally for some people but it certainly couldn’t be passed from one person to another – teaching creativity is impossible