Churchill Leadership Trait: Creativity

Creativity (and creativity as a leadership trait) is essential to keep pace with rapid change, the competition and to effectively harness opportunities. It is needed to solve problems and to make the best decisions. Sir Winston Churchill loved innovation and the unorthodox people who spark change.

Hire ""Freaky" People

Modern day management guru Tom Peters would approve of Churchill's penchant for recruiting eccentrics and mavericks to positions of power and influence. Lesser leaders would not have had the nerve and vision to do so. Churchill recognised what Peters tells us today that whenever anything interesting happens it's "freaky" people who cause it, that you always need "freaks" in freaky times (and war is very freaky!), "freaks" are fun and keep us from getting stuck in ruts, they up the freakiness in the not-so-freaky and it's always "freaks" who get put into the history books.

As Churchill said "We want live wires not conventional types". He wrote to Field Marshall Sir John Dill "We cannot afford to confine army appointments to persons who have excited no hostile comment in their careers...This is a time to try men of force and vision and not be exclusively confined to those who are judged thoroughly safe by conventional standards." In this letter Churchill was referring to the unconventional (and controversial) tank warfare expert Major General Percy Hobart. Hobart was at the time retired and though he offered his services to the war effort, was passed by in favour of more "ordinary" soldiers. On Churchill's say so Hobart was reinstated and had a major positive effect - especially in the development of specialised armoured equipment.

Churchill noted that"It's not only the good boys who help to win wars. It is the sneaks and stinkers as well." Churchill's championing of "freaky" people lead to many unorthodox appointments such as the rapid promotion of unconventional-warfare expert (but arguably half-mad) Orde Wingate, the recruitment of the crack team of "geek" eccentrics at Bletchly Park who cracked the Nazi enigma code (Perhaps Britains single greatest feat during the war?) and putting the controversial Lord Beaverbrook in charge of Aircraft Production.

Try "Freaky" Ideas

Churchill loved unorthodox ideas as much as he liked unorthodox people - and of course one bred the other. Churchill himself would optimistically come up with literally hundreds of new and radical ideas - the majority, it must be said totally madcap like his idea to build aircraft carriers out of icebergs and tow them around! That said he also had touches of creative brilliance: it is to Churchill that we must credit the idea of the Mulberry harbours used on the D-Day landings. He also pioneered amphibious tanks. Churchill was always fascinated by secret weoponary of the James-Bond-gadget type - and would encourage all sorts of trials and demos with schoolboy like enthusiasm...with mixed results!

Creative Environment

How did Sir Winston Churchill stimulate his fertile mind? He was naturally a risk taker and a gambler and this must have helped. He also he understood his own body clock and tended to work unconventional hours to suit himself: typically spending all morning working from his bed and only dressing for afternoon appointments. He also used to enjoy an afternoon siesta (something he picked up as a habit, along with his love of cigars on his early trip to Cuba) - this allowed him to effectively have 2 working days in one 24 hour period, as he would then work long into the night. Churchill also believed in setting aside time to think. He was a keen painter (very creative) and he found this hobby along with others a great tonic. The very fact that he held many broad interests and maintained many and stimulating friendships would only have helped his naturally fertile mind to continue to come up with ideas.

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