Creativity is where bravery and style coalesce.
Welcome to our Followership blog series. As an organization, we have always focused on what it takes to be a great leader, but even great leaders must sometimes follow. That’s why we’re excited to hear from Sharna Fabiano—a coach, educator and followership expert—about what it takes to succeed as a follower and how mastering followership skills can help you flourish in team settings.
No matter who we are, most of us feel fulfilled when we are able to express ourselves creatively. This does not mean you have to be an artist, only that you allow your own strengths and ways of looking at the world to influence and inspire your daily tasks.
Besides influencing your day-to-day life, creativity and innovation can also transform the world, solve big problems and shift cultural norms. In fact, they are increasingly among the highest priority across industries and job sectors. I think of creativity as what happens when your intuition meets your intellect.
Some of us, though, have been taught that only leaders are creative, and that those in supporting roles are not integral to the process. But that’s not true. In a team, creativity comes neither from the leader nor the follower, but rather from the alchemy of the two. Any team with strong connection and collaboration skills is on its way to becoming more creative and innovative. It is the next logical step.
Creativity Skill 1 - Bravery
Bravery is responding to a creative challenge with action. Often, that action must be taken without being able to predict the ultimate outcome with certainty or to know what additional actions may be required as a consequence of the first one.
When visionary leaders paint a desired outcome in vivid brushstrokes, brave followers can discover new paths and be inspired to take the journey. What might be less obvious is that brave followers also encourage visionary leadership. When the destination or goal is vague, a few ambitious steps in any direction can sharpen the leader’s focus. At the creativity stage, following begins to feel a bit like leading and vice-versa. Use the skills below to boost your bravery.
Do It Anyway
It’s normal to feel discomfort when we step out of our comfort zone. The feelings are not the problem, it’s our interpretation of the feelings that hold us back. It’s perfectly fine to feel the discomfort and do the scary thing anyway.
Caveat: Feelings of discomfort may also occur when someone or something has violated a boundary for you. It’s important to learn the difference between the Bravery Edge and the Boundary Edge. If you have reached a Boundary Edge, the appropriate choice is to stay within your comfort zone.
Let It Be Imperfect
Perfectionism will rein in your bravery like nothing else will. If you’re trying something new, or taking a risk of any kind, there’s no way it’s going to be perfect. Do your best and let it go. Chances are there will be an opportunity, if necessary, for you or someone else to improve on whatever you did at a later time.
Creativity Skill 2 - Style
Bravery is generally about reaching outside of your comfort zone, but style is the opposite: reaching in. What are your greatest strengths? How do you like to approach teamwork? Embracing and deepening these strengths and preferences reveals your own creative signature. Knowing and applying your own sense of style keeps you, your teammates and the leaders of your team engaged in creative and dynamic dialogue that support consistently excellent work. Try these strategies to sharpen your sense of style.
Organize
I know it seems counter-intuitive, but keeping your space organized is a practical way to boost your creative energy. The trick is to see organization as a creative challenge rather than an unpleasant chore or a way to procrastinate. Make sure you organize in a way that makes sense to you and allows you to easily find and access the things you need to work creatively and productively.
Novelty
Read a fantasy novel, bake a cake, take a dance lesson. Do something new for the sake of doing something new, and be open to the experience.
I hope through the course of this series you’ve seen the many ways followers meaningfully contribute to a team setting and learned some strategies you can practice. Remember, great ideas don’t spring fully formed from one mind working in isolation, no matter how talented the leader is. It takes a team, and mastering both leadership and followership allows us to deepen our understanding of what it means to make working together smarter, better and more inspiring.
By Sharna Fabiano
Sharna is an artist, educator and certified coach who trains teams and organizations on leadership and followership. She has also established two dance schools and directed her own performing company. She incorporates her insights from the world of social dance into her work on the leadership/followership dynamic. Learn more by visiting her website.