I was just reading through the results of the 2010 IBM Global CEO study.  The study interviews roughly 1500 CEOs, section heads, and division leaders from around the globe.  Anyone who has worked with leaders over the past  decade will be familiar with the 3 of the 4 key results.

• Today’s complexity is only expected to rise and more than half of CEOs doubt their ability to manage it. Seventy-nine percent of CEOs anticipate even greater complexity ahead. However, one set of organisations we call them ‘Standouts’ has turned increased complexity into financial advantage over the past five years.
• Creativity is the most important leadership quality, according to CEOs. Standouts practice and encourage experimentation and innovation throughout their organisations. Creative leaders expect to make deeper business model changes to realise their strategies. To succeed, they take more calculated risks, find new ideas and keep innovating in how they lead and communicate.
• The most successful organisations co-create products and services with customers, and integrate customers into core processes. They are adopting new channels to engage and stay in tune with customers. By drawing more insight from the available data, successful CEOs make customer intimacy their number one priority.
• Better performers manage complexity on behalf of their organisations, customers and partners. They do so by simplifying operations and products, and increasing dexterity to change the way they work, access resources and enter markets around the world. Compared to other CEOs, dexterous leaders expect 20 percent more future revenue to come from new sources.

Discussions of increasing complexity, new product creation, and integrating customer needs have been happening for most of the last decade.  What struck me as new however was the recognition on part of business leaders that creativity may prove to be the most important leadership quality.   Leaders around the globe are recognizing that winners in a knowledge based economy will themselves think creatively, and more importantly, will be organizing their businesses to leverage creativity at all levels.

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