The most desirable leadership skill you need to attain to future-proof your career is...

Hiya,

Six years ago this group of 20 senior leaders in London made a commitment to take a six month journey led by me to accelerate their careers to become the 21st Century leaders they were born to be.

When I started working with these leaders I challenged them to boost their CREATIVITY as a first step to begin to support them to become 21st Century ready.

Why?

When it comes to the topic of creativity, two facts stand out

First, it tops nearly every "Twenty First Century Skills" list ever made. 

According to the Partnership for 21st Century Skills—a collection of 250 researchers at 60 institutions—creativity is the top skill required. 

Secondly, it's the most desirable quality in a CEO.

According to a global survey conducted by IBM of 1500 top executives in 60 countries, creativity is again the answer.

Lara Hayward was part of this group. Over the last six years led by her desire to amplify her creativity I've supported her with leadership and career strategy coaching. During this time she's transitioned from a Legal Counsel Role at UK Sport to the lead for Creative Careers at Oxford University with a side hustle where she's utilising her design thinking skills to take values aligned startups through the B-Corp certification process. 

Now, Lara is a Smart Girl on a mission but she needs our help. 

To support her work at Oxford she wants to understand why we move away from creativity and the links that creativity has on sustainable high performance with a focus on how we problem solve, innovate and improve our mental health. 

She's exploring questions like... 

• Why do we move away from creativity? 
• Why do we come back to it? 
• Is our creativity linked to who we really are and what motivates us on an intrinsic level?

Her goal is to not only gain further funding to influence policy and curriculum so we can give our children the skills they need to thrive in the future and for us to become ready for the next wave of innovation that will be required in our careers post COVID-19.

Her preliminary results show that a number of us view the exploration and pursuit of creativity as a selfish or self-interested thing to do (and therefore something we shouldn't choose to do as there are more worthy causes to work on).

This in turn leads to us deprioritising it, sometimes at the expense of our own health and wellbeing. 

I invite you to support Lara in her research. 

Here's a link to take a 5-minute survey where your views will be heard and you'll have the opportunity to figure out as you answer the questions how embracing and unleashing creativity can help you become a 21st Century leader.

To say a little thank you I'll pick at random one person and send a signed copy of Smart Girls Screw Up Too. There's a full chapter inside that will help you never feel the guilts about taking time out to be creative.

PS. I'm running a series of free "Future-proof your Career" workshops. If you're a high performing executive and want to create your 3-5 year + career strategy and take bold steps forward this is for you.

Limited dates are available in June and July so sign up here.