Front, Back, Middle or Above – Where Do you Lead From?

Photo by Antonello Falcone - The Wiseman on Unsplash

Last week I was chatting to a coaching client about creative leadership. They’re head of design lead at a brand celebrated for innovation. And together we stumbled upon a metaphor that could be helpful if you too lead a creative team. It’s a simple way of thinking about the role in a dynamic, fluid way, responsive to wherever you are in the process, and it begins by asking the question, ‘Where should I be, right now, in relation to my team?’ 

We’re told that great leaders lead from the front. And there’s certainly a time and place for that. Out in front is where you need to be when there’s a fuzziness about the brief, when your client is wobbling, or when your team or the work needs defending. You step forward, put yourself in the firing line and – hopefully – lead the way to safety. You’re also likely to find yourself out front at the start of the process, helping define the problem, or at the end, as you present the solution.

But the best creative leaders can also lead from the back. Your hope is that the people you’ve hired will arrive at better ideas than you could alone. And in order for this to happen, sometimes you need to quietly retreat and let them get on and do their thing. You’re a little like a watchful shepherd, following your flock, happy to let them seek out the lushest grass, but ready to step in if they stray too close to a cliff.

Sometimes it’s good to put yourself in the middle, alongside your team, wrestling with the same challenges they face and showing that you don’t mind getting your hands dirty. Trying to solve the brief yourself gives you the kind of invaluable insights that you might otherwise miss, it keeps your instincts sharp and it shows the team that your creative heart is still beating.

Then there are those times when your role is to circle the team, defending them from any unnecessary stress – an inconsistent client or a shifting strategy – and creating the space for them to pursue the outlandish and absurd. As Google’s multi-year research initiative Project Aristotle found, psychological safety is the single most important factor in high performing teams, and your creatives depend upon you to provide it.

And, every now and again, you have to strap on your metaphorical jetpack and take an elevated perspective – a position where you can take in the bigger picture, join the dots, make the strategy sharper and more focused, or create the throughline from problem to solution.

In my experience, most creative leaders default towards one of the above; it’s the place where they feel most comfortable. But it doesn’t always best serve the team. The more mindful you are of where you position yourself, and the more fluid you are in moving between positions, the better the creative leader you’ll be.