Creative marketing leadership is something I was fortunate to observe in my first boss. This corporate executive knew the art and science of giving effective direction so that team members understood key issues, project goals, and what was expected. As importantly, he knew how to give team members the appropriate sense of space and latitude to develop their ideas while maintaining strategy and direction.
I learned a great deal from that first boss, and since that time I have tried to imitate this model. I have worked to provide leadership in development of programs meshing great ideas, goals and direction, programs embracing new media tools, needs for experimentation and testing, and traditional principles that continue to perform.
Ideas that consider critical input and stay focused on strategies and objectives can be powerful. They provide confidence and enable the team to take risks that would otherwise not be assumed. And marketers that accept accountability and the need to generate measured results will find an abundance of opportunities and buy-in from tough CFO’s and business managers.
As a corollary, I will add that we must allow our strategies and assumptions to be challenged and improved as we work to engage audiences who face an ever growing plethora of messages through the multitude of media around us.