Exploring Your Creative Genius: Episode 59
In the last episode of Exploring your Creative Genius we strolled along together through a digested version of my career, from being a fishing guide to an entrepreneur to a professor to a novelist.
I tried to tease out lessons learned along the way and for this column I will focus on Servant Leadership.
Perhaps you’ve heard me use the phrase ‘pragmatic altruism’. I love finding all the places where being kind and generous and nurturing of others—being my best self—not only serves others and it not only makes me feel good about myself, but it is a highly effective approach to leadership.
It was an approach to leading that I learned without knowing I was learning it sitting in the back of a fishing boat at age 15 trying to guide 50 year old bank presidents. The better I served my guests, the more authority they would grant me. When they saw I was using this new authority to serve them even better, they gave me more. Soon, I was leading them on a three day wilderness adventure.
It makes me feel good helping folks get the most out of the moment, helping employees develop their talents, helping them get the best return on their investment in their work. And gosh, it is so effective at attracting the best talent.
My mindset as a leader of an organization was I would never stop recruiting the great talent that works with me by helping them make this the job they really want to have.
An aspect of servant leadership that I don’t hear discussed much is that it respects the importance of open-endedness, allowing folks the opportunity to take as much control over the project or initiative as possible.
It’s not directionless. But when you offer folks a compass that identifies the direction to head, but not a road map that tells them just how to get there, you will be delighted as I am frequently how others figure out a better way and have more satisfaction along the way.
“Exploring Your Creative Genius” takes an expansive view on what it means to be creative and entrepreneurial in an ongoing conversation led by Carl Nordgren — entrepreneur, novelist, and lifelong student with decades of experience growing his own creative capacity and assisting others to do the same in exciting new ways!
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