The 5 Core Elements of Creative Leadership

Over the years working with founders, executives, and leadership teams, we’ve seen the same pattern again and again.

When leadership breaks down, it’s rarely because of intelligence, ambition, or effort.

It’s because one or more of these five elements is underdeveloped.

Think of them less as tactics and more as parts of an internal operating system that allow leaders to stay grounded and effective in a VUCA world.

1. Relating - Build a Team People Want to Win For

Let me start with a simple question:

Do people feel better after interacting with you…or more guarded?

Relating is your ability to build real trust with the humans around you - your team, your customers, your partners. It’s what determines whether people give you compliance or commitment.

Early on, founders can brute-force results. You can push. You can compensate. You can muscle things forward.

But growth exposes everything.

When trust is low, people withhold information. Problems show up late. Energy leaks everywhere. The business becomes heavier than it needs to be.

Trust, on the other hand, acts like oil in an engine. Everything moves more smoothly. Faster. With less wear and tear.

Takeaway:
If you want performance that lasts, you don’t start with pressure - you start with relationship.

2. Self-Awareness - Stop Being the Bottleneck

Here’s a hard question most leaders avoid:

What if the biggest constraint in your business is you, and you just can’t see it yet?

Self-awareness is the ability to look in the mirror without flinching. To understand your patterns under pressure. Your triggers. Your blind spots.

In Fulfilled, Kathryn and I talk a lot about symptom management; solving the obvious problem while missing the real one underneath.

A lack of self-awareness almost guarantees that cycle continues.

It’s like driving with a foggy windshield. You can still move forward - but you’ll overcorrect, miss signals, and eventually hit something you didn’t see coming.

Takeaway:
Your business will never outgrow your leadership, and your leadership won’t grow without awareness.

3. Authenticity - Lead Without the Mask

Let me ask this plainly:

Are you leading with courage… or managing your image?

Authenticity is when your values and your actions match, even when it’s uncomfortable.

Cultures don’t usually break down because of bad strategy. They erode through small compromises that go unaddressed. Conversations that never happen. Standards that quietly slip.

People sense it when something’s off. They may not say it, but they feel it.

Authentic leaders don’t just read the room, they set the temperature. They deal with reality. They speak clearly. And because of that, trust accelerates.

Takeaway:
People don’t trust what you say. They trust who you consistently show up as.

4. Systems Awareness - Stop Fighting the Same Fires

Let’s be honest:

How many times have you “solved” the same problem already?

Systems Awareness is the ability to see your business as a whole, not just as a series of urgent issues. It’s recognizing patterns instead of reacting to symptoms.

Entrepreneurs are especially vulnerable here because urgency feels productive. Firefighting creates motion.

But when the same fires keep breaking out, it usually means the system is broken and it is actually reinforcing the problem, even when good people are working hard.

This is the shift from mopping the floor…to fixing the leaking pipe.

Takeaway:
You don’t need more hustle. You need a better machine.

5. Achieving - Turn Vision into Results (Without Burning Everyone Out)

Finally, we get to Achieving.

Yes, results matter.
Execution matters.
Momentum matters.

But here’s the distinction:

Creative Leadership achieves results without sacrificing health, values, or relationships in the process.

A lot of leaders can grow a company.
Fewer can grow one they actually enjoy running.

Achieving, in this framework, is about Clarity. Focus. Follow-through. It’s about turning “we should” into “we did,” consistently.

Not in panic mode.
Not through heroics.
But through alignment.

Takeaway:
Ideas don’t scale companies. Execution does - but only when it’s aligned.

A Simple Way to Hold It All Together

Here’s the framework in plain language:

• Relating builds trust so people want to follow you.
• Self-Awareness keeps you from becoming the bottleneck.
• Authenticity creates a culture people actually believe in.
• Systems Awareness makes growth repeatable instead of exhausting.
• Achieving turns vision into real, measurable progress.

This is what Creative Leadership looks like in practice.

And over the next issues of The Leadership Contrarian, we’ll go deeper into each one, because none of these live in isolation.

They reinforce each other.
Or they break down together. 

If this resonated, I’d encourage you to do one thing this week:

Don’t ask, “What should I push harder?”
Ask, “Which of these areas needs strengthening right now?”

That question alone changes how leaders lead - and how businesses grow.