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For decades, corporate leadership has been dominated by analytical prowess. Ascending the corporate ladder often meant demonstrating value through meticulous spreadsheets, precise forecasts, and detailed execution plans. Vision was acknowledged, but only when accompanied by a comprehensive road map. This paradigm, however, is shifting. In today’s era of rapid change, emotional complexity, and cultural fragmentation, linear strategies are insufficient. The most impactful leaders can envision new futures, cultivate emotional connections, and distill complexity into relatable narratives. The next generation of C-suite executives won’t just be adept operators; they will be architects of meaning. In short: They wont just be strategists, but creatives. Rethinking Leadership: From Logic to Imagination Historically, businesses have prioritized logic over creativity, resulting in leadership cultures rich in data but deficient in imagination. But creativity is now paramount. A recent Gallup study revealed that only 30% of employees feel connected to their company’s mission or purpose, marking a record low in 2024. Notably, fully remote workers struggle even more with this connection, as physical distance often translates to a mental disconnect from their employer. Moreover, a Deloitte report found that only 26% of workers strongly agree that their employer treats them as whole individuals, recognizing their unique contributions and skills. These findings underscore a critical issue: The emotional infrastructure of leadership is faltering. Efficiency alone is no longer the answer; resonance is essential. This is where creatives come into play, not as peripheral marketers or consultants, but as integral members of executive leadership. Imagine a CEO who leads with storytelling, not just statements; a chief human resources officer (CHRO) who designs employee experiences with the finesse of an artist; a boardroom that embraces visuals, metaphors, and even moments of silent contemplation to navigate complexity. What Creative Leaders Do Differently Creative leaders transcend problem-solving; they reframe challenges, anticipate tensions, and design interactions with intentionality. They consider the emotional ripple effects of decisions and understand that before individuals commit to a plan, they must resonate with its underlying story. They recognize that logic informs, but emotion compels. In uncertain times, strategy provides direction, but storytelling fosters alignment. Data offers explanations, but design inspires action. These leaders treat organizational culture as a canvas, viewing each initiative as an opportunity for meaning-making. They might commence a product launch with a narrative circle instead of a sales chart, or conclude a quarterly review with a thought-provoking question rather than a performance dashboard. These practices aren’t gimmicksthey’re essential tools for leadership in an age where facts alone are insufficient. If Creatives Led the Boardroom Envision a leadership meeting that begins not with status updates but with the question: What story are we living right nowand is it the one we want to be telling? Instead of diving into objectives and key results (OKRs), the team members reflect on the narrative shaping their organization and assesses its alignment with their goals. Imagine strategy sessions resembling creative studios more than command centers. Whiteboards adorned with sketches, not just key performance indicators (KPIs); ambient music setting the tone; and silence embraced as a space for contemplation. In times of crisis, the initial inquiry isn’t How do we manage this? but What does this moment ask of us as humans? If this approach seems radical, it’s only because we’ve long separated creativity from leadershipa separation that’s contributed to misaligned teams, ineffective strategies, and stagnant organizations. A Real-World Example: Airbnb’s Creative Leadership Airbnb’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic is a tangible example of creative leadership. Facing unprecedented challenges, CEO Brian Chesky didn’t rely solely on traditional strategies. Instead, he embraced storytelling and design thinking to navigate the crisis. Chesky penned heartfelt letters to employees and hosts, transparently communicating the company’s challenges and decisions as the travel industry cratered. He prioritized the community’s well-being, supporting hosts, and implementing flexible guest policies. This empathetic approach reinforced Airbnb’s brand values and maintained trust during turbulent times. On top of that, Airbnb reimagined its platform, introducing online experiences to adapt to the new normal. This innovative pivot showcased the company’s ability to blend creativity with strategic foresight, ensuring resilience and continued engagement with its user base. A Framework for Expanding Creative Leadership in the C-Suite Integrating creative intelligence into the C-suite doesn’t require a complete organizational overhaul. It starts with a mindset shiftan openness to design as a way of leading, not just a way of presenting. These practices are not soft skills; theyre strategic competencies that help leaders unlock deeper engagement, innovation, and trust. Here are four ways to begin. 1. Sense before you solve. Initiate major discussions by exploring the emotional landscape. Ask What are we feeling? to surface insights beyond data. This practice creates space for intuition, unspoken dynamics, and early signals that often get overlooked in performance reviews or planning decks. When leaders learn to read the room, not just the metrics, they make decisions that resonate more deeply and stick longer. 2. Design the experience, not just the strategy. Recognize that every policy, product, and meeting shapes the employee experience. Deliberately craft these moments to align with the emotions and values you want people to carry forward. Whether its a town hall, onboarding journey, or performance conversation, the how matters as much as the what. Design-thinking principlesempathy, prototyping, and iterationarent just for products; they belong in leadership, too. 3. Use storytelling as a strategic tool. Move beyond declarations. Weave in narratives that encapsulate vision, challenges, and aspirations, fostering deeper connection and shared identity. A well-told story doesnt just informit invites participation. It helps teams locate themselves inside a larger arc of meaning and progress. Leaders who communicate in narrative terms create alignment not just through direction, but through emotional coherence. 4. Invite diverse perspectives. Incorporate voices from artists, designers,facilitators, and other creative thinkers to challenge assumptions and expand the lens. These perspectives introduce new metaphors, fresh language, and alternative ways of making sense of complexity. When we bring in people who see the world differently, we dont dilute business thinkingwe deepen it. Innovation thrives at the intersection of difference. The Future of Leadership: A Studio, Not Just a War Room We’ve reached the limits of what linear thinking can achieve. Addressing challenges like cultural fragmentation, technological disruption, and global crises requires not just intellect but imagination. Future leaders won’t merely ask How do we grow? but What are we growing toward, and who do we aspire to become? They will: Design rather than direct. Curate experiences instead of solely managing outcomes. Imagine possibilities beyond analyzing current realities. Because the future of business isn’t something to be managed into existenceit needs to be imagined, crafted, and brought to life through creative leadership. This isnt about replacing strategy with art. Its about integrating the two so that organizations can lead not only with precision, but with vision. The companies that thrive in the coming years will be the ones bold enough to create what doesnt yet exist, and human enough to make it matter.
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E-Commerce
Four years ago, GM set an audacious goal: By 2035, the automaker planned to go all-electric. The company says its still aiming for that target. But it simultaneously lobbied the Senate to end Californias ban on new gas car saleswhich was also supposed to go fully into effect in 2035. In theory, California’s policy should have supported GM’s transition. GM even recruited employees in the lobbying effort. We need your help! the company wrote in an email to staff, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. Emissions standards that are not aligned with market realities pose a serious threat to our business by undermining consumer choice and vehicle affordability. The lobbying worked. Yesterday, the Senate voted to revoke an Environmental Protection Agency waiver that allowed California to set clean air rules that are stricter than national standards. (Congress arguably didnt have the legal right to revoke the waiver; more on that later.) In a statement, the company said, “GM appreciates Congress action to align emissions standards with todays market realities. We have long advocated for one national standard that will allow us to stay competitive, continue to invest in U.S. innovation, and offer customer choice across the broadest lineup of gas-powered and electric vehicles. [Photo: GM] GM CEO Mary Barra has said that the company believes in an all-electric future. The company, which began seriously investing in battery design in 2018, spent $11 billion on EV infrastructure between 2020 and 2024. It has a massive battery factory, co-owned with LG Energy, near Nashville, and another in Ohio, making thousands of battery cells per minute. Its racing to bring down the cost of batteries, the biggest factor in the overall cost of EVs. In the first quarter of this year, GM sold 31,887 EVs in the U.S., a 94% increase over its electric vehicle sales in the same period last year. Its now the second-largest seller of EVs in the U.S., quickly gaining on Tesla. The company plans to nearly double the number of EVs it makes this year compared to last. It has 11 models on the market, including the Chevy Equinox EV, currently the most affordable EV in the country. The popular Chevy Bolt, another affordable EV, will come back later this year. But the company argues that California’s clean car rule is moving faster than market demand. The rule sets targets that automakers have to hit each year. For model year 2026 cars, 35% of a manufacturer’s car sales in the state have to be zero-emission, or the manufacturer has to pay a fine. The target jumps up to 43% in 2027, 51% in 2028, and keeps going until new cars are 100% zero-emission by 2035. Last year, in California, around 25% of new cars registered in the state were electric. This year, as many buyers have veered away from Tesla, the percentage of EV sales could drop. GM declined to comment on whether it expects to hit the 35% target for model year 2026 cars in the state. [Photo: GM] Other states have followed California’s regulation, with the same annual targets: Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington. Those states have even lower percentages of EV sales now. Car companies say it would be unrealistic for them to immediately meet the targets for model year 2026 that those states require. Critics argue that if demand is lower than expected, automakers themselves bear some responsibility. “That’s like the kid who says, ‘Look, I didn’t study for the test, and it’s unfair that you’re giving me a bad grade,'” says Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Transport Campaign at the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, noting that GM has the best engineers in the world. They know how to make vehicles that meet standards and that are attractive to consumers. And they’ve chosen not to market their electric vehicles. . . . The auto industry in the United States spends $14 billion a year on advertising and other marketing. Very little of that goes to advertising electric vehicles.” EVs are facing other major challenges. The House just voted to phase out the $7,500 tax credits to buy or lease new EVs (companies that have not yet sold 200,000 EVs will be able to continue to qualify for the credits until the end of 2026; GM has already passed that limit). The House bill also ends a $4,000 tax credit for used cars that was introduced in the Inflation Reduction Act, and another tax credit for home chargers. Since EVs haven’t quite reached price parity with gas cars, the tax credits are crucial. Car companies are also facing steep costs from tariffs. A GM spokesperson said on background that the California rules could cost the company billions at a time when profits are already being squeezed by tariffsand that’s money that the company needs to continue to be able to invest in EV development to bring costs down. GM is still losing money making EVs, though costs are decreasing as production scales up and the technology continues to advance. The Senate vote on California isn’t definitive. The Senate parliamentarian ruled that Congress didn’t have the authority to overturn the waiver that allows California to make its own clean air rules. Waivers aren’t included in the Congressional Review Act, the law that the Senate used to revoke the waiver. (The CRA allows Congress to overturn recent laws with a simple majority vote; the waiver was also granted in 2022 and arguably would also not be considered recent.) “Congress doesn’t get to amend [laws] along the way by saying, ‘Oh, well, we really meant it to be this,” sys Becker. “It’s a Pandora’s box that they’re opening. If the CRA isn’t limited to rules, then you’ve opened the door as to what can be undone by the congressional actioncorporate mergers that are allowed by the SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission], cost-of-living adjustments by different agencies, offshore drilling permitswho knows how this will ultimately be used. And the Republicans will not always be in charge.” California could potentially sue. “That will result in uncertainty for the industry,” Becker says. “They keep saying they want certainty. And they’re getting rid of it by demanding that Congress use an illegal mechanism to undo protections for people with lungs.” Meanwhile, EVs are growing faster outside the United States. Globally, more than one in four cars sold this year is likely to be an EV. In China, more than half of new car sales last year were all-electric. In Norway, 97% of all cars sold last month were electric. As federal support reverses in the U.S., American automakers will fall behind.
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E-Commerce
In December 2022, Matthew Boyer hopped on an Argentine military plane to one of the more remote habitations on Earth: Marambio Station at the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, where the icy continent stretches toward South America. Months before that, Boyer had to ship expensive, delicate instruments that might get busted by the time he landed. When you arrive, you have boxes that have been sometimes sitting outside in Antarctica for a month or two in a cold warehouse, said Boyer, a PhD student in atmospheric science at the University of Helsinki. And were talking about sensitive instrumentation. But the effort paid off, because Boyer and his colleagues found something peculiar about penguin guano. In a paper published on Thursday in the journal Communications Earth and Environment, they describe how ammonia wafting off the droppings of 60,000 birds contributed to the formation of clouds that might be insulating Antarctica, helping cool down an otherwise rapidly warming continent. Some penguin populations, however, are under serious threat because of climate change. Losing them and their guano could mean fewer clouds and more heating in an already fragile ecosystem, one so full of ice that it will significantly raise sea levels worldwide as it melts. A better understanding of this dynamic could help scientists hone their models of how Antarctica will transform as the world warms. They can now investigate, for instance, if some penguin species produce more ammonia and, therefore, more of a cooling effect. Thats the impact of this paper, said Tamara Russell, a marine ornithologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who studies penguins but wasnt involved in the research. That will inform the models better, because we know that some species are decreasing, some are increasing, and thats going to change a lot down there in many different ways. With their expensive instruments, Boyer and his research team measured atmospheric ammonia between January and March 2023, summertime in the southern hemisphere. They found that when the wind was blowing from an Adelie penguin colony 5 miles away from the detectors, concentrations of the gas shot up to 1,000 times higher than the baseline. Even when the penguins had moved out of the colony after breeding, ammonia concentrations remained elevated for at least a month, as the guano continued emitting the gas. That atmospheric ammonia could have been helping cool the area. The researchers further demonstrated that the ammonia kicks off an atmospheric chain reaction. Out at sea, tiny plantlike organisms known as phytoplankton release the gas dimethyl sulfide, which transforms into sulphuric acid in the atmosphere. Because ammonia is a base, it reacts readily with this acid. This coupling results in the rapid formation of aerosol particles. Clouds form when water vapor gloms onto any number of different aerosols, like soot and pollen, floating around in the atmosphere. In populated places, these particles are more abundant, because industries and vehicles emit so many of them as pollutants. Trees and other vegetation spew aerosols, too. But because Antarctica lacks trees and doesnt have much vegetation at all, the aerosols from penguin guano and phytoplankton can make quite an impact. In February 2023, Boyer and the other researchers measured a particularly strong burst of particles associated with guano, sampled a resulting fog a few hours later, and found particles created by the interaction of ammonia from the guano and sulphuric acid from the plankton. There is a deep connection between these ecosystem processes, between penguins and phytoplankton at the ocean surface, Boyer said. Their gas is all interacting to form these particles and clouds. But heres where the climate impacts get a bit trickier. Scientists know that in general, clouds cool Earths climate by reflecting some of the suns energy back into space. Although Boyer and his team hypothesize that clouds enhanced with penguin ammonia are probably helping cool this part of Antarctica, they note that they didnt quantify that climate effect, which would require further research. Thats a critical bit of information because of the potential for the warming climate to create a feedback loop. As oceans heat up, penguins are losing access to some of their prey, and colonies are shrinking or disappearing as a result. Fewer penguins producing guano means less ammonia and fewer clouds, which means more warming and more disruptions to the animals, and on and on in a self-reinforcing cycle. If this paper is correctand it really seems to be a nice piece of work to me[theres going to be] a feedback effect, where its going to accelerate the changes that are already pushing change in the penguins, said Peter Roopnarine, curator of geology at the California Academy of Sciences. Scientists might now look elsewhere, Roopnarine adds, to find other bird colonies that could also be providing cloud cover. Protecting those species from pollution and hunting would be a natural way to engineer Earth systems to offset some planetary warming. We think its for the sake of the birds, Roopnarine said. Well, obviously it goes well beyond that. By Matt Simon, Grist This article was originally published by Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Sign up for its newsletter here.
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E-Commerce
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