Why Leadership Training is Critical for Creatives and Their Organizations
By: Keva Dine, Bonnie Wan, and Rimma Boshernitsan
Why are creative team members not getting promoted within their own companies? The answer is complex, but at least five factors are contributing to the problem:
The shakeout from the pandemic is still playing out
What worked in the past no longer works
Old resumes, portfolios, and LinkedIn profiles detract from your contributions
AI is becoming a popular way to lower expenses for creative teams
Lack of leadership training is creating its own ceiling
While all these market conditions are worth discussing, we want to focus on one that we find particularly concerning. After surveying hundreds of people in the creative and marketing industries, Keva discovered that 70% of all design and creative leaders have never had access to authentic creative leadership training.
Instead of moving up in their organizations, creatives have historically moved from place to place and, as a result, inadvertently become the head of a team. This is unique in so many ways to the creative and marketing people we’ve talked to.
It’s interesting that leadership training has always been available to the CSuite but hasn’t been offered to creatives and marketers who are actually leading teams. That’s a real problem that can be easily solved with the proper training and access to people who understand the creative environment and what it takes to lead there. That’s why colleagues Bonnie Wan, Rimma Boshernitsan, and Keva Dine from The What Alliance have set out to solve that problem.
First, a little about the team:
Bonnie Wan: The creator of The Life Brief, Bonnie spent years as a Partner and Head of Brand Strategy at Goodby Silverstein & Partners, helping people and brands live with clarity and courage.
Rimma Boshernitsan: A strategic advisor to CEOs at Google, Levi’s, and Apple, Rimma spent two decades helping leaders navigate complexity and make better decisions.
Keva Dine: That’s me. Founder of The Keva Dine Agency, I’ve built creative careers and future-proofing teams and worked with brands like Apple, Target, and Wayfair for over 24 years.
Now, let’s tackle the problem: Meaningful, interactive, results-oriented leadership training for creatives.
Why Leadership Training is Important and Worth the Investment
In the era of AI and as technology assumes a bigger role in business, complexities, and uncertainties have emerged that can’t be solved by continuing to do things the same old way. While that includes your LinkedIn profile and portfolio, it’s bigger than that.
Applying tried-and-true methodologies to training leaders is part of the solution. However, because the challenges have become so diverse and change is happening so fast, emerging leaders need a space to problem-solve and work through the challenges they face every day.
Today’s creatives and those in leadership or looking for leadership roles are being tasked and asked to do more with less every day. When we talk about less, we mean less of everything. Fewer resources, smaller talent teams, and accelerated timelines. Amid the hustle and grind, we have less time to reflect on the most important parts of our leadership, identify our point of view about creativity, and discover the best ways to bring value to business.
Graduating from practitioner to leader is the biggest leap people can make. Without training, that's a very wobbly leap. Today, creatives are in the make-it-or-break-it mode, leading by following the example of the good and bad managers they’ve had in the past and making mistakes that cost a loss of trust and team synergy. It doesn’t work because we don’t learn from experience; we learn by reflecting on our experiences.
Manifesting Your Leadership Potential
When we decided to put together a course for creatives that would help them cross over from individual contributors or level up their leadership skills, we designed it to give participants the spaciousness to interact with other leaders and time to reflect on what makes you, your work, and your organization distinct.
Without the ability to reflect and create a clear point of view, the current market's chaos, ambiguity, and volatility will be harder to navigate. Once you establish clarity, that will be the compass by which you lead and build value for your work, organization, and team. It will be the foundational base from which you lead people, cast teams, identify gaps, and give feedback.
The point is that you already have a clear and strong point of view. You just don’t realize it because you are in the tornado of your day-to-day, putting out urgent fires or in the trenches trying to figure out your next move. Being a leader begins with knowing your point of view and positioning your work and yourself in a way that tells a story of the value of your work. As creatives, we need to reshape the value we bring and ensure our business counterparts understand that the goal of creativity is not just to make things look pretty; it’s a driver of business and brand.
The actual test of leadership happens when we find ourselves leading through chaos and instability and can’t see what’s coming. Do we trust ourselves to navigate the environment for ourselves and our teams? How do we deal with multiple truths happening simultaneously and navigate the complexities of the polarities of behaviors and opinions in our dealings with others and ourselves? In this situation, the more information we have about ourselves and the more tools we have at our disposal, the better we can show up.
The Creative Leadership Incubator Series
All this sounds good in theory, doesn’t it? We think so, too, but we’ve taken the next step and put theory into practice. Beginning in February 2025, Bonnie, Rimma, and Keva are presenting a purpose-built course for creatives and marketing professionals. We designed it to give participants that spaciousness they need to hear their own voices and filled it with inspiration from every angle.
During the course, we’ll explore the complexities of leadership through many different lenses and leave space for you to participate in discussions with a group of your peers with similar goals. We combine those ingredients to co-create your unique playbook—a personalized takeaway and leadership handbook.
We know that one size fits no one and that each individual in the training will need to understand their personal value and how that has value for the clients and organizations they serve.
After all, leadership involves knowing your boundaries and point of view well enough to maintain power in certain situations and have the confidence to lead with the right power. That’s the ultimate goal of the Creative Leadership Incubator, which is to lead you to a position of personal conviction and power.
Don’t just take our word for it…..
“Leadership training has been quite impactful for me. I came to the program as someone who was leading different departments, and I was getting to a point in my career where the call to urgency was superseding how I wanted to spend my time. I wanted to build something of substance but needed to know how to present my point of view.
During the course, we created an environment that demanded that we ask tough questions of ourselves and not let ourselves off the hook. Without being led through the provocative questions, I would not have been as honest with myself. The exercises, the readings, and the conversations with the other leaders in the program elevated my sense of self and what I could offer.
After the course, I’ve found that I'm better able to command the space that I hold and much more capable of dealing with ambiguity when I don't know what is happening at the moment. I might not know what will happen tomorrow, but I now trust my ability to discern what should come next based on how I feel and think,” said Equality Health Vice President, Change Management and Communications Jennel McDonald.
Final Thoughts
Level up or lose it. That’s the reality in today’s market. Whether you’re a job seeker ready to step into leadership, a hiring manager looking to elevate your team, or someone eager to build a personal brand that stands out, The Creative Leadership Incubator is your chance to make it happen.