Good leaders, in my opinion, are creative rather than reactive. For example, a creative leader will foresee future demands & trends and make new products or tailor the ones they already have to prepare for the future.

Things are changing very rapidly these days. For this reason, it’s as crucial as ever to be able to understand how those changes will affect your business…and establish ways to take full advantage of them.

Are you creative or reactive? Here’s how you can test your potential.

Are You a Creative or a Reactive Leader? Test Yourself

If you want to advance quickly in the business you work for or accelerate the progress of the business you own, you’ve got to become much better at starting things, and at making things new…or even making new things.

In an article in Fast Company magazine, Jim Collins wrote that the best leaders don’t focus as much on beating the competition as they do on improving on their products and services. To clarify, there’s no point going head-to-head with your competitor if it’s your product that’s failing.

Qusestions to Advance Your Business

Creative business leaders are always asking themselves the following questions:

  • What do potential customers really need, now?
  • What worries them?
  • How can I make our current customers happier?
  • What causes them pain?
  • What would they be eager to buy?”
  • How can we make the products we sell them better?
  • More useful? 
  • More valuable?”

Do you ask yourself these questions? Regularly? Provided that you do, do you come up with not just good, rather great answers? Answers that can advance your business? To be sure, test your creative skills against this checklist.

Are you:

  • internally driven
  • focused on the work, not politics
  • goal-oriented around, rather than crisis-centred
  • good relationship builder

Do you:

  • make full use of your strongest talents
  • set aggressive long-term goals

As shown above, these are all characteristics of creative leaders.

Creative and Reactive

Whereas these are the traits of “reactive” leaders.  They generally:

  • are motivated by external factors like money and power
  • are focused on corporate politics, not the work
  • allow their time to be dictated by what’s in their inbox
  • sometimes ignore their strongest talents in favor of “good management”
  • plan in one- to five-year increments
  • they believe nothing is sacred and relationships are expendable

With this in mind, how many of these reactive characteristics apply to you?

How would you grade yourself?

The best leaders are indeed long-term oriented, people-friendly, loyal, eager to provide better products & services, and unconcerned about where they stand in just about any pecking order. Whether in their industry or within their business.

In summary, a creative leader will adapt and adjust to the market when a challenge presents itself. Whereas a reactive leader are motivated by things they can’t control. With this in mind, think about how the way you lead affects the business you run.

Now that you know whether you’re a creative or reactive leader, find out how healthy your business is by using our free business health check tool.