Something that I continue to run into throughout the readings so far in this course has been that it seems that it is difficult to define exactly what creativity means and exactly what leadership means. Or that these terms are generally up to the interpretation of any individual. And as a result it’s even more difficult to define what creative leadership is or how it’s defined. I’m coming to see that these terms are fluid. Although we live in a world where definitions and clear interpretations help us communicate and create boundaries around what is and is not, leaving these terms up to interpretation is a creativity exercise within itself. As Dr. Samuel W. Franklin talks about in his book The Cult of Creativity and discusses in the Chasing Leviathan Podcast, the term ‘creativity’ is relatively new, only coming to exist in today’s context in the 1950’s. So it makes sense that we haven’t quite defined what it really means yet or that it is still an evolving concept. And maybe it always will be.
One quote that I found really interesting from the Chasing Leviathan podcast was a summary PJ mentioned of Dr. Samuel W. Franklin’s words, “We’re sending people looking for something that we’ve already found because then they won’t work on the thing itself”. Here Franklin was pointing out that often the call for creative innovation can be a way for leaders to not take action on solutions we already have because they don’t necessarily want to take risk or radical change, but maybe want to be seen in the social context of “wanting” change. I suppose wanting change and taking action on change are really very different things. And applying those two things to a capitalistic society, action and wanting or fostering action are indeed very different. I think in this, greenwashing is born.
Franklin, Samuel W. 2024. The Cult of Creativity: A Surprisingly Recent History. N.p.: University of Chicago Press.