How can we identify and assess creative capacity in leaders?

I just received a form from my child’s school, seeking permission for an assessment as gifted/talented.  I’m  blogging about it because it got me thinking (again) about how we assess and identify high potential individuals (ok, and maybe I'm bragging a little, too, but just a little).

Our school district considers students who fall into one or more of these categories for gifted/talented programs:

• Intellectual Ability - Students whose general intellectual development is markedly advanced in relation to their chronological peers
• High Achievement Ability - Students who consistently function for two consecutive years at highly advanced levels in both English-Language Arts/reading and mathematics.
• Specific Academic Ability - Students who consistently function for three consecutive years at highly advanced levels in either English-Language Arts/reading or mathematics. Students in Grades 9-12 may also be considered in either science or social science.
• Creative Ability - Students who characteristically perceive significant similarities or differences within the environment, challenge assumptions, and produce unique alternative solutions.
• Leadership Ability - Students who show confidence and knowledge; influence others effectively; have problem-solving and decision making skills; express ideas in oral or written form clearly; show sense of purpose and direction.
• Ability in the Performing or Visual Arts - Students who originate, perform, produce, or respond at exceptionally high levels in either dance, music (voice), drama, or in drawing or painting.

This list reminds me of Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences, although it doesn’t strictly match all of Gardner’s categories.  I appreciate that the schools are making an explicit effort to identify individuals with exceptional abilities not only in academic and intellectual domains, but also in creative, artistic, and leadership pursuits.  Depending on the area of gifted/talented nomination, formal assessments can include intellectual ability testing, auditions or demonstrations, and a review of past work.

To identify high-potential individuals in business, we typically look for a record of high performance (good business results) combined with evidence of leadership ability.   Organizations often compare candidates to a competency model that describes what outstanding behavior looks like in a specific company.  A known problem with this is that competency models are built at a point in time, but leadership needs change, so we may end up selecting high-potentials (or leaders) based on yesterday’s criteria if our competency models are not refreshed often enough.

IBM’s recently released Global CEO Study found that leaders of organizations around the world identified CREATIVITY as the single most important leadership competency for enterprises seeking a path through the complexity that characterizes our times.  The report finds that CEO’s now realize that creativity trumps other leadership characteristics.  Creative leaders are comfortable with ambiguity and experimentation.  To connect and inspire a new generation, they lead and interact in entirely new ways.

How can we identify and assess creative capacity in leaders?  To what extent is creativity and ability that aspiring leaders can develop?

Worldwork High Impact Leadership Seminar

How could I resist a weekend seminar that promised:
- Concepts and tools to understand and work with unpredictable, non-linear behaviors of teams and organizations.
- Inner work to re-discover vision and spark, independent of outer situation and support.
- Concepts and exercises to relate to team members, independent of their willingness to collaborate.
- Methods to collaborate with networks to unfold the impact that they can have on your leadership.

I had heard about the work of Max Schupbach from a former colleague so I was prepared to have an intense experience, and I did.

The content of the session was compelling, starting with the idea of a “second globalization,” in social relations and personal psychology, as a successor to the globalization of commerce. The seminar aimed to expand leaders’ self-awareness and effectiveness in working on a worldwide basis, and to equip them with tools to enable others to do likewise.

Max’s techniques fuse organization/leadership development with art and Jungian psychology. For example, to access a deeper sense of personal vision, one exercise required us to identify an historic, mythic or fairytale figure we could associate with our vision. We then had to make a hand gesture and a facial expression to express the essence of the figure. The next step was to scribble a picture to help us remember the creative, artistic expression. We then talked about how to develop the vision. What daring acts would help it grow? What aspects of our habitial behavior and self-identity would we need to drop or change in order to follow this vision? What dropping ritual could provide support in making personal change?

This work was done in pairs. The paired work allowed each person to get a significant amount of "air time" in practicing the techniques as a facilitator and experiencing them in an applied way. The level of personal discovery was quite high, exceeding my expectations for the seminar.

Max facilitates processes like this with corporate clients, public agencies, and grassroots community-based organizations. Is my organization ready for this kind of approach?