How Will The Best Leaders Lead In 2025?
three leadership practices that will be critical to leaders of creative businesses this year.
"FEARLESS CREATIVE LEADERSHIP" PODCAST - TRANSCRIPT
Episode 274: How Will The Best Leaders Lead In 2025?
Welcome to the first episode of 2025. A year that promises to be unlike any other on so many levels.
This episode is designed as a provocation, an inspiration, and a roadmap for the leaders of businesses, for whom unlocking creative thinking is critical.
Over the last four weeks, I've talked to 12 exceptional leaders from a diverse set of experiences and perspectives. I've asked them how the best leaders will lead in 2025. From those conversations, I've identified the three leadership practices that will be critical to leaders of creative businesses this year.
Creativity is the fuel by which progress is powered. And progress is existential to the human experience. We must move forward or some part of us dies.
But progress requires disruption and disruption carries risk. What should we change?
Today, gay marriage is legal in America because Robbie Kaplan stood in front of the Supreme Court and argued for it. She understands the delicate balance between change and the status quo.
[00:01:12] Robbie Kaplan: To me, it seems very, very important to try to, on the one hand, understanding why a young person today might have a lot of questions about the world that we're living in, because many, many, many of those questions are entirely legitimate. But at the same time, to establish that there have to be certain fundamental principles that we all agree on in order to solve the problems that people are so concerned about.
[00:01:38] Charles: There are many questions about the world we inhabit and the one we want to live in. How we see those choices depends on what and who we are influenced by. What we believe. What we think is true.
In 2019, Pew Research discovered that the truth is up for grabs. In their study, nearly two thirds of adults said it was hard to tell the difference between what's true and what's not when listening to elected officials. That number was 48% when it came to social media and 41% for cable television news.
In the absence of more recent research, it's entirely reasonable to think that those numbers are probably worse today. In my conversation with Jim Stengel, he emphasized that this struggle to find the truth from traditional sources, is having an impact on the evolution of business leadership.
[00:02:34] Jim Stengel: I think there are some studies, you have probably seen them as well, trust in so many things is down, and the trust in business actually is held up pretty well. And I, I do feel like we have a really important role to play now, and that is to be positive forces for our customers and our employees.
[00:02:57] Charles: Joanna Coles, the Chief Content Officer of the Daily Beast, points out that this lack of trust goes beyond politics and the media. She explains why this is having enormous personal impact on business leaders.
[00:03:11] Joanna Coles: I think it's a really complex time for CEOs and so much more is being asked for them. There's a lack of trust in religious institutions which used to provide community for people and that in particular has taken a hit. So, I think companies are increasingly becoming institutions where people crave leadership, look for leadership, want an authentic expression of values. And a good CEO has always felt loyal and thoughtful about their employees. But now they have this added almost pastoral obligation, I think.
[00:03:50] Charles: Every act of creative thinking and innovation requires an emotional leap of faith. Create an environment that people trust and you will get better ideas. In the same Pew Research, 69% of adults said that they could tell the truth when talking to people they know. Which means that the human part of creative leadership, is a very, very big deal.
Which is why leadership practice one for 2025, is Optimism. Because, where you aim the human part of your leadership has enormous implications for how much impact you have, as DJ Jackson, the Vice-president of Ventures at Electronic Arts, explains.
[00:04:32] DJ Jackson: I actually think going back to what makes us human, that kind of slow emotional intelligence, is it's particularly hard earned hard retained for me. And I'm guilty of thinking fast and moving past things at times. But in those moments, when my processing becomes more machine like, more goal driven or goal oriented than I'd like, I think remembering that human emotional intelligence is still uniquely ours and being optimistic about how you think about the future means that you'll go and find out. You don't have to just absorb what's offered to you. And that you'll speak to friends and you'll speak to colleagues, and between you, as long as you're trying to optimize for optimism, you'll get to a different outcome.
[00:05:11] Charles: Optimism came up unsolicited in several conversations. Kate Rouch the newly appointed CMO for Open AI, believes passionately in the importance and power of optimism to unlock our capacity for creative thinking.
[00:05:27] Kate Rouch: I describe myself as a determined optimist. I do think it takes determination and that it's a choice, that it's an active choice that we all make every day to choose what kind of worlds do we believe we live in? But in order to get to break through creative work, I think we, we need teams and people that are actively choosing that, no matter what the various inputs around them are, that we're actually going to set forward a path of optimism, creativity, curiosity and a future that's better than a past. And as storytellers, I actually think we have a profound responsibility to set forward visions of the future that people want to get behind, that are not fear driven, that are not a scarcity mindset. That are abundant and generative and inclusive and beautiful. And we have a opportunity as storytellers to do that. And I think that's our job.
[00:06:36] Charles: To lead with Optimism, define a future, the matters to you. Challenge yourself to intentionally adopt an inherently positive belief to every situation. And then seek that quality in the people around you, so that you're not just counting on your own supply.
Which brings us to Leadership Practice 2 for 2025.
And that is, clearly define the emotional and personal contracts between your organization and your people.
Leaders are storytellers first, describing a vision of the future and the change they want to bring to the world. One that's important enough that people want to join them on that journey. Nils Leonard, the co-founder of Uncommon, describes the opportunity and responsibility of leadership in an inevitably unforgettable way.
[00:07:28] Nils Leonard: I found a little pamphlet from Howell Henry. And this pamphlet said all we have is how we see the world. That's all creativity is, is a view of the world. And the reason I loved it was because it was the truest thing I'd read. . You have a brief gift and a brief moment as editor of a magazine, or lead creative of a studio, to carve out your version of events. And I was like, okay, I have to articulate that. What a missed opportunity to just turn up and try and be nice. Thanks. Can't possibly do that. What's the biggest gift I can give an employee? I will not waste your fucking time. Your time here is not a waste. Your time here matters. That's the biggest gift I can give an employee. F*ck a bean bag. They won't remember that.
[00:08:03] Charles: ‘I will not waste your time’ is one critical reference point. Madeline Grinstein, the Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, believes that there is another organizational imperative. If you want to build trust.
[00:08:19] Madeleine Grynsztejn: You have to pay attention to the operational integrity of your organization as much as to what your offering is. And any gap between the ethics of your operations behind the scenes and the messages that you're putting out there, that gap is a credibility gap. And that generates distrust. We need to grow your capacity for wonder and amazement and curiosity because that will decrease narcissism, cynicism, suspicion, skepticism and frankly, increase interpersonal trust. And so I think trust is generated when you meet people where they are.
[00:09:05] Charles: Creative thinking is the result of tension between the known and the unknown. Between the safe and the unpredictable. And through that lens, meeting people where they are and not wasting their time fulfills one side of the leader, employee relationship. But for this to work, there needs to be tension from the other side of the relationship too. What are you looking for from the people that work for you? Emma Cookson, a partner in the Brandtech Group, remembers a description of such powerful simplicity, that it has stuck with her years later.
[00:09:42] Emma Cookson: I remember CMO of Molton Coors, Michelle St. Jacques. Her marketing agenda was "fast, messy, awesome." And I thought that's fantastic, isn't it? Cause that could definitely be watered down into 'we want to move at the speed of modern culture and they ought to embrace all sorts of talents, and the highest possible standards are mandatory at all times.' You could just make 'fast, messy, awesome,' completely sanitized and forgettable. But nobody forgot it. Everybody referenced it the whole time. I wasn't even in the organization, I wasn't even working that closely with them, but it just was super clear to people what Michelle expected. And you could feel the values in it, can't you? When it says messy, what she's saying is, I want the pace, and I want the entrepreneurialism and I want the zeal, I want the enthusiasm. And I don't care if you get things a bit muddy along the way. But I could feel her values really, really clearly in it.
[00:10:48] Charles: Applying the contract between your organization and your people has four components. One, what will you promise them? Two. What do you expect from them? Three. Where is the contract made known? And Four, who is responsible for its mutual enforcement?
And that brings us to Leadership Practice Three for 2025. And that is relentlessly pursue self-awareness.
The human through-line to the story so far is palpable and powerful. But how do you take these insights and turn them into leadership behaviors? How should you bring your leadership to life on an hour to hour, day to day basis?
The foundation on which impactful memorable leadership sits is trust. The capacity to convince people that they should risk their future on you. How do you build trust?
Greg Hahn, the co-founder and chief creative officer of Mischief, sees the truth as table stakes.
[00:11:51] Greg Hahn: I think if you're not basing anything on the truth the real truth, the human truth, and, and if it doesn't make sense or it doesn't line up, it, it will feel false. You'll just know it. And I don't think it's helping anybody. It's like you could spend your money trying to make people believe this, but at the end of the day, you're not basing it on a truth and it's gonna come out.
[00:12:08] Charles: The truth is harder than we think. Research suggests that, on average, people lie 1.6 times a day. And think they're being lied to between four and six times a day. That's fertile ground for suspicion. Overcoming that as a leader requires a commitment to bring all of ourselves to our leadership, as Heather Freeland, the CMO of Adobe, intimately describes.
[00:12:36] Heather Freeland: These are such crazy times on so many levels and it almost doesn't matter who you are. There's some dimension that is rattling people for every community. One of the most important things that I believe in as a leader is is transparency and authenticity. And, I actually do a weekly note to my team that says nothing more than what's on my mind. I could give a nod to what's happening in the world. I could give a nod to some work that's happening or dynamics in the business. And, I also share what's happening with me personally, so they understand that this is coming from a place of of humanity and and human perspective. And the idea in doing that is to build trust and safety. That if I can be open and honest and candid about what's happening in the business? What's happening in the world? What's happening in my life? Hopefully that creates an environment where others on the team can as well, and they feel safe and feel like they're working in a place that values them and what they bring to the table.
[00:13:40] Charles: Transparency and authenticity, are words that are too often dismissed as cliches. I think that's because it's easier to diminish the power of transparency and authenticity than it is to provide them. But Heather's description exposes the kind of self-awareness that's necessary to bring those attributes to your leadership.
Kerry Sulkowicz is the past President of the American Psychoanalytic Association. And the founder and managing principal of Boswell Group. He and I spend much of our professional work, helping leaders to deepen their self-awareness.
[00:14:18] Kerry Sulkowicz: Self awareness takes many forms. It involves understanding how one's own mind works, what makes one tick, but also how one is perceived by others. And it's very related to a kind of humility about the world around one. At its heart, self awareness involves a kind of curiosity about oneself and about others.
[00:14:38] Charles: Curiosity about yourself often gets left behind in the leadership journey. Lina Polimeni, the CMO of Eli Lilly, offered me one of the most memorable and vulnerable descriptions of the path to self-awareness that I've ever heard.
[00:14:53] Lina Polimeni: Honesty helps me. So being honest with myself, and understanding that my job as a human being is not to make things good and say, okay, I'm unhappy now, so I need to get happy. My job is to observe with curiosity every single emotion that I feel. And so if I feel anger, I need to be able to sit with that and also say, okay, this is saying something else. It's like a fever symptom. What's the actual reason? If I feel envy, if I feel disappointment, I need to be able to investigate those emotions. I find that has helped me to keep myself in a good mental space for work. Very recently, a very close friend of mine experienced something and I, in the same beat, I can be so happy for this person and then realize I'm envious of this. I don't like envy. Like it's not my feeling, but I'm feeling it. So what does it try to tell me? What part of what she's experienced, I'm grieving that I don't have. And it's a constant dialogue in my head. I'm always observing those emotions.
[00:15:50] Charles: The traditional views of leadership have always included the expectation that the leader should be all knowing. The focus of that expectation has always been outwards. All knowing about the business, the competition, the marketplace.
But in today's world, the leaders that unlock their capacity for creativity, bring a desire to first know themselves. And a willingness to share that knowledge with the people around them.
Self-awareness is not an easy undertaking for many leaders. Even the most successful suffer from imposter syndrome. The challenge to be deeply curious about ourselves, forces us to confront self images that have become part of long-held, internal stories that comfort us. Even while they undermine us.
In extreme cases, the self doubt can become a toxic force, not just for its owner, but for their relationship and impact on others.
A willingness and determination to be curious about yourself, and about others, to investigate why you feel the way you do in difficult situations, brings with it two things.
First, an inherent vulnerability that will strengthen and widen the reasons why people trust you.
And second, will dramatically increase your trust in yourself.
Optimism. The Employee Organization Contract. And Self-awareness.
Three practices that you will find in the very best leaders in 2025.
All of them share one essential characteristic. They require no capital investment, no ROI analysis, no approval from anyone.
Which means, you can start today.
Happy 2025.
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If you'd like to hear more, go to fearlesscreativeleadership.com, where you'll find the audio and the transcripts of every episode. You can also find out more about our work with some of the world's most creative and innovative businesses.
Sarah Pardoe is the show's Executive Producer. Please contact her for all guest inquiries at sarah@fearlesscreativeleadership.com. And thanks for listening.
