Why be a maverick leader?
It’s time to nurture the mavericks in your team
A while back I contributed to the book Winner’s Mindset where I talked about the role of outliers in organizations. You know them. They’re the ones who don’t seem to fit in, who don’t care much what others think of them, the oddballs. Mavericks like these are needed, though, when it comes to producing innovative solutions.
Why? Since they’re less concerned about the opinion of others, mavericks are more likely to open their mouths and share their ideas, and crazy ones at that. And crazy ideas often lead to more innovative products and services for customers, more elegant internal systems, more effective marketing, and a more productive and motivated team.
Maverick characteristics
Maverick characteristics include being ambitious, entrepreneurial, and irreverent. Mavericks are adventurous and like to experiment. Instead of seeing constraints, they see opportunities. Mavericks are driven to improve things. Their enthusiasm is infectious.
It’s not just businesses that benefit from being open to the diverse mindset of mavericks. Whether by providing goods and services that contribute to a strong economy, finding small ways to make a bigger difference in the world, or by being the best parent or person we can be, the world needs us to be at the top of our game.
What does this mean in practice?
As a new team leader you’re under scrutiny, and this means improving your team’s performance. The solution to getting your team to a level of peak performance is helping them work better together. The easiest and fastest way to do this, in my experience, is by facilitating creative problem-solving in your team. And the wackier the solutions - the more maverick-y they are - the higher the chances of coming up with solutions no has identified before.
But here’s the rub. In Adobe’s “State of Creativity” global benchmark study (2012), 80 percent of people saw unlocking creative potential as being key to economic growth, yet only 25 percent felt they were living up to their own creative potential. I’ll wager that if the same survey were carried out today, those findings would be roughly the same.
As a maverick leader there are actions you can take that will lead to a culture of peak creative performance:
Build a diverse team
Encourage a maverick mindset
Nurture your team’s maverick tendencies
Develop your team’s capacity for creative problem-solving through training and practice
Give the team autonomy in how they get their work done
Encourage intentional and open communication
Lead by example
If you’re excited by your role in helping your team to think outside the box, or to build a completely new box, I hope you’ll try on some of these mindsets!
Want help becoming a Maverick Leader?
I specialize in working with emerging leaders to improve their team’s creative problem-solving abilities. Using Light Bulb Thinking™, I show the managers I work with how to build and lead a creative team that consistently delivers new ideas and solves difficult problems while having fun, so staff can have a work experience that’s rewarding and meaningful, and which gets the manager’s abilities noticed.
Let’s explore how facilitating creative problem-solving with your team could help you quickly address your challenges. Schedule a free mini-consult here.
Go forth, maverick leader!
I coach emerging managers who want to excel at their work without losing their spark. I show them how to build and lead a creative team that consistently delivers new ideas and solves difficult problems while having fun, so they can have a work experience that’s rewarding and meaningful, and which gets them noticed.