The Three Unknown Traits of a Great Creative Director

One of the reasons my agency is named School is because of our commitment to nurturing young talent and “graduating” them into the creative agency world. Since our inception three years ago, we’ve coached and coaxed 57 young creative people who have left our Boulder home to garner paychecks and accolades at some of the best agencies across the country.

After witnessing and cheering on the talent that is entering our industry, I am compelled to answer a recurring question that is directly or indirectly posed by the callow and eager interns and apprentices at the agency: what makes a great creative director?

Unlike many of their other countless queries, this is actually not a dumb question. Because in answering it thoughtfully and cogently, they may get a sense of the industry they are entering and the one that they should be reshaping in their image.

And I gladly answer it, because I have the vantage of being an erstwhile executive creative director and a current CEO of a network-backed agency. I am deeply committed to building a thriving agency — be it the creative work, serving our partners and growing the business culture — and believe that the role of the creative leader impacts almost everything the agency does.

So in this vein of relevance, I often contemplate what it really means to be a creative leader. I’m certainly biased and ultimately desultory, so please I beg you to sprinkle some grains of salt on the following thoughts.

First, a creative leader is not a leader but a maestro.

Forget all the stated tropes about creative leadership. A great director in the new age isn’t taking cues from Sun Tzu or the biographies of generals, presidents or billionaires. Instead of being a leader, the creative director of the future must be a maestro.

There’s no room for a “t-shaped” creative director in the new normal — the appropriate infographic of a creative director’s mastery looks like a comb instead of a letter. The next-generation creative director must now know a lot more about a lot more things.

Like a seasoned conductor, a creative director doesn’t need to play every instrument perfectly but needs to know how perfectly each instrument can sound. The maestro doesn’t lead through bravado or talent; she coaxes and directs beauty out of a creative cacophony because she is comfortable amongst it. A leader may tell people where to go, but a maestro can inspire people to create their own destinations.

As my friend Tim Roper says, “specialization has become considerably less special.” He believes that the future of creative work lies with transcreatives — those who are happiest when they have hyphenated roles and titles like writer-director, designer-developer and strategist-producer. He’s started an agency called F.Yeah and Associates based on the notion that transcreative directors are “a powerful demonstration of 21st century badass can-do-ness. It is weapons-grade aptitude.” I like the sound of that.

Second, a creative director doesn’t need to be creative.

The only awards that matter are the Effies. Or the Reggies. Or any accolade that measures business success and revenue velocity. Practically every client I’ve met would agree that she would rather work with a creative director that grows business over a creative director that collects hardware. And if most of the statues we compete over are still predicated on creative merit, we are awarding the wrong people in the business for doing the wrong things with their clients’ money.

It’s fairly mind-boggling to think that there are agencies out there in which creative leaders and directors are not privy to the financial performance of their top clients. Even more appalling is how in the dark creative directors are about the financial health of their own agencies. For creative directors to excel in the new agency paradigm, financial acumen and oversight will be paramount.

In other words, creative directors need to come up with the money-making idea not just the award-winning one. The next portfolio I want to see has brilliant creative work accompanied by real growth metrics directly attributed to it.

Third, the most important quality in a creative director is empathy.

Listen, this is going to sound a little harsh and believe me, the young interns that hear it get pretty pissed at me. But here goes. The next generation of creative leaders in this industry is a bunch of entitled, misguided and self-destructive crybabies, sycophants and dilettantes. What’s most sorely lacking is empathy. And gratitude. And intuition. These are the traits that alchemize the quotidian and obvious into insight and inspiration.

Empathy is the key that unlocks great creative. There’s an adage that states to never trust anyone who’s rude to a waiter. Here’s another: great creative leaders need to cry at the movies. They need to have what Gary Vaynerchuk calls his overdeveloped “EQ” — emotional intelligence — that allows for empathy to flourish. A creative leader’s evolved emotional intelligence allows her to sniff out the quiet geniuses, brilliant oddballs and the bone fide unconventional thinkers. (More on that here: http://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/how-hiring-confident-oddballs-can-produce-craft-beyond-norm-169015/)

Empathy lets her “hire great people and get out of the way.” It also gives her power to see great insight — something that speaks to her — and act with decisive intuition to make it a reality. And empathy makes her enthusiastically compliment her team and even her creative rivals.

Compliments are a natural extension of human empathy. We know how hard our colleagues work because we work that hard ourselves. And in denying ourselves a little bit of back-slapping, we certainly deny that to our co-workers as well. And even though we spend countless hours together as co-workers, and meet each other at conferences and award shows, our coexistence has not led to as much empathy as expected. How could it? The only times and places when and where we allow ourselves to express congratulations and extend compliments to each other are at New York banquets and on yachts at Cannes. These are not the right places where empathy and camaraderie is needed for some authentic compliments.

No, the time and place for compliments is right now — in a well-worded email, a well-placed high-five, back-slap or thumbs-up, through a phone call to just say job well done. That’s how empathy is formed.

So I guess it’s time for me to tell those creative interns just how I feel — to give them the love they need to be great. Thanks for reading.