How Creative Leaders Gain an Enduring Edge

Most people do not make a distinction between problem solving and creating. Because of that, all our politicians talk about are problems and how to solve them. However, the great leaders have a completely different orientation: creating desired outcomes. You can solve all of your problems and still not have what you want.

Problem solving is taking action to have something go away: the problem. Creating is taking action to have something come into being: the creation. After making this point at a Harvard-Vanguard’s Leadership Academy program that I teach, a Harvard professor came up to me afterwards and said, “I’m struggling with this idea about problem solving.” “What’s so hard about it?” I asked. “Nothing,” he said, honest man that he was, “I just hate it because I’ve been teaching problem solving for the last twenty years.”

The creative process is THE most successful process for accomplishment in history. It has created all of the arts, science, engineering, and the best things about our civilization. A leader that understands that job number 1 is to create rather than problem solve has enduring impact. It is not to say that problem solving doesn’t have its place occasionally. But if it is chronic, at best you can get rid of the current group of problems, only to find there is another group ready to drive the action. The great leaders lead us to something we want, not simply away from what we don’t want.