5 Tips to Recover Your Creativity as a Leader

Artistic pursuits are your gateway to becoming a vibrant, inspiring, and effective leader

As leaders, we often get caught up in the seriousness of our roles. We feel the weight of responsibility, the pressure to perform, and the need to always have the right answers. But in doing so, we risk losing touch with a vital part of ourselves — our innate creativity.

Creativity isn't just for artists or designers. It's an essential leadership skill in organizations, especially in times of rapid change and uncertainty when we face situations we've never encountered before and have limited information and resources.

The good news? We're all born creative – think back to the ease with which you created games and adventures using just a few sticks and leaves. That still exists in all of us. We just need to remember how to access it.

Here are some ways to recover your creativity and bring it into your leadership:

1. Find your art

First, I want you to think about what you do with pure pleasure and no pressure. That's your art.

It could be cooking, gardening, writing, dancing - anything that makes you feel alive and lets you forget about the demands of life for a while.

For me, it's flamenco dancing. When I'm performing, my mind is empty but also alert. I'm challenged, but drenched in joy. I feel free to fully express myself- ironically, without using any words.

Whatever your art is, do it regularly. Do it simply for pleasure, with no expectations of what you need to get out of it. Let the process itself guide you to where to go next.

2. Be a beginner, often

As adults, we often shy away from unfamiliar territory, we tend to stick to the things we know or are good at. After years of experience, we have our recipe for success. But being a beginner is where magic happens. It's a place of surprise, and surprise is essential to keep our brain engaged and learning. When we learn something new, our innate playfulness is stimulated. Playfulness is a dynamic conversation between our inner world, our body and the surrounding environment, and it’s at the heart of new discoveries.

I remember my first solo dance performance as a child. I was so self-conscious about my fake hair bun (made from a steel scouring pad!). I made so many mistakes on stage! But that awkward beginning showed me I was stronger than I thought. And the start of a lifelong passion.

Try something new. Take a class. Make mistakes. Laugh at yourself. Beginnings are the happy place of creativity. Experience it untamed, ready to flourish.

3. Bring artistic principles into business

Once you've rekindled your creativity through personal pursuits, start applying those principles to your work. Bring the things that you’ve learned at the easel (or the kitchen, or the garden) into the workplace. This is easier said than done because so much about the business world is about compartmentalizing ourselves, whereas this is about integrating all parts of ourselves. Small steps are the way to go.

For instance, as a dancer, I learned that when you space out or get lost on stage, the best way to recover is to simplify and just do something simple to mark the beat. This is counterintuitive because when we realize we're lost, we tend to pile on even more desperately trying to stick to the plan and avoid being "found out" by the audience. Simplifying and just marking the beat allows me to keep dancing while I re-orient myself. This calms my nervous system and brings me back to a place of resourcefulness and high performance. Invariably, I recover without anyone noticing I made a mistake.

I discovered that my experience of being lost or stuck at work was the same as on stage. Once I connected those 2 dots, all I had to do was apply the same principle I used on stage – for example, by going back to basics, by reconnecting with the team, or by regrounding in our purpose. Plus, the experience of recovering on stage was so familiar to my body, that evolking that was enough to bring the same calm confidence to work situations, which allowed me to positively affect those around me.

Don’t treat your art as an irrelevant hobby. Treat it as your lab, your dojo, your studio – where you experiment, discover, and learn valuable skills that allow you to face challenges with joy, creativity and vitality.

4. Make room for unstructured time

In our busy lives, we rarely stop and allow our minds to wander. But it's in these unscheduled moments that our best ideas often emerge.

I discovered this during a sabbatical year. One of my favorite things to do in the morning hours was to just look out the window. I started noticing details I'd never paid attention to before. Time slowed down. My mind relaxed and opened, a prereq for creativity.

Another thing I tried was to go on a content diet. I started with a week of no news, social media, or books. Then I stopped listening to podcasts and watching YouTube videos. I even averted my eyes from billboards on the freeway. I love learning and reading so this was rough in the beginning, but over time my mind felt more relaxed. The biggest gift was that I realized the difference between what I think vs the thinking I consume which I mistake for my own.

Build some unstructured time into your day. Even 5 minutes can make a difference. It could be as simple as waiting in line at the cafe without reaching for your phone to scroll; taking a walk without a destination in mind, or blocking off an hour for just doing what you feel like doing, moment to moment.

5. Cultivate wonder and perplexity

When I hit a low point in my work as a coach, I realized I had lost the curiosity I had felt since I was a teenager about the inner workings of the human psyche. I started learning about fields I knew little about- cosmology, history, animal behavior, astrology. By reconnecting with a sense of wonder I was able to rekindle my passion and reshape how I do my work.

Practice “useless wondering”. Dive into areas that have nothing to do with your work. Breakthroughs usually follow.

Recovering your creativity isn't about fixing yourself or changing who you are. It's about waking up vital parts of yourself that have been dormant.

It's about remembering who you already are by tapping into your natural abilities to express yourself and create something out of nothing. Those natural abilities can be resurfaced through your art, be it dancing, gardening, painting, singing, decorating, drawing, or something else entirely.

Don't treat creative pursuits as optional or something only children or professional artists do. They're essential to life. They're your gateway to becoming a vibrant, inspiring, and effective leader.

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