This book has been a lifetime in the making. Many people contributed, both knowingly and unwittingly. First, credit goes to the parents who struggled and sacrificed from the day I was born to fund the college education ticket out of a working‐class town – and told me there was nothing I couldn't do. Thanks to the retired Mobil Oil executive who taught a January term advertising course at Rider College, who inspired me to become a copywriter because you could make more money doing that than working in journalism, even at the New York Times.

Then there are all the mentors at Ogilvy who taught me so much of what I know during the first years of my career. D.O.'s aphorisms and Magic Lanterns still echo in my ears. I continue to pass on that enduring wisdom to every advertising student who lands in my classroom. Thanks to the great creative leaders who improved me – and my work – with every critique. Jay Jasper. Suzette Prigmore. Sue Buck. Malcolm End. John Doig. Joyce King Thomas. Sam Scali. Cappy Caposella. Thank you to every creative partner who let their stardust rub off on me with every ideation session: Amy and Ann and Phil and Candace and Mike and Sheila and others.

Thanks also to the creative assholes who crossed my path. You all taught me resilience – and what not to do. The blowhards taught me that true genius doesn't need shameless self‐promotion. The sharks and thieves taught me the value of integrity. Had it not been for these sorry types, I would never have known so much joy when I encountered genuine talent and greatness.

Thanks to my Rider professors, Frederic Turner and Tom Simonet, who remembered me well enough nearly 20 years after graduation to write grad school recommendation letters (in the dark ages, before Google or LinkedIn!). They aided my transition from the advertising industry to my second career in the academy. Thanks to Pixy Ferris who recognized a paper good enough to become my first academic publication.

Thank you, Nancy Vonk and Janet Kestin for catapulting Neil French's bombastic sexist comments around the globe in 2005, right when I needed a project to fire up a research agenda. Honestly, what would a creative person find more fascinating to study than creativity itself? Gender and creativity and the creative industries and all their intersections.

Thank you to all my colleagues at the University of South Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communications for helping me navigate the mysteries of the academic world, and for your guidance and support through this loooooonnnng project made even longer by a TBI. Augie Grant, Keith Kenny, Cecile Holmes, Bonnie Drewniany, Carol Pardun, and Andrea Tanner: I most certainly could not have done it without you. Likewise, thank you to my scholarly colleagues and co‐authors who shared their light and insights: Sheri Broyles, Jean Grow, and especially Kasey Windels.

Then there's my precious little family. Thank you, Bruce Bakaj. Somehow, you've stood steadfastly beside me for almost four decades encouraging me in this and so many adventures, when others would have run screaming. And thank you to the light of my life, Emily Bakaj. Your very existence has given me more than you will ever know. Go. Live. Follow your star wherever it leads …

Creative talent has always been in great demand. “Content creation” is the latest catchall phrase for what writers and art directors and filmmakers have been doing for ages. But the explosion of channels and evolving digital landscape mean greater opportunity in the creative industries than ever before. It's no surprise that growth in the creative industries outpaces other sectors in most national economies.

The whole “maker movement” added fresh cachet to being creative. People all over the world clamor for careers that combine earning a living along with an outlet for creative expression: design of all kinds – package, graphic, web, fashion, and more – advertising, social media, video and filmmaking, and countless others.

But once you are in, and do your job quite well for a few years, you've “been there, done that.” You're a rising star … then what?

Inevitably, career success means moving up. A promotion. And in the creative industries, career growth usually means going from creating yourself to leading others who create. If you're highly talented, it often means rising to leadership more quickly than it would in staid, traditional industries. Unfortunately, simply having demonstrated great creative talent in your craft in no way prepares a person for successful leadership. Most creative businesses don't do much to prepare you either.

Creative people don't usually plan five years ahead. They rarely plan to lead. They don't even think about leadership until they're thrust into it (unless grousing about a leader who sucks qualifies as “thinking” about leadership). Which is why this book needed to be written, and why you need to read it before you need it. Be ready when your potential is recognized – because most of your peers won't be prepared to lead.

The vast majority of people employed in creative industries are too busy with their day‐to‐day jobs to follow academic research on creativity and leadership. They're lucky if they catch some highlights in the trade press or business news. And that's unfortunate. Because the people at the very top of many companies or agencies (especially the biggest ones, who are beholden to shareholders and quarterly numbers) have one overriding concern: the bottom line. When decisions are made that undermine creativity, creative people, the creative product – and ultimately the business – all suffer in the long haul. Sadly, that is true even in creative industries. Yet, success and creativity needn't be at odds. Look at Google and Virgin and DreamWorks for great, shining examples.

Too many ad agencies and design firms and creative leaders do things a certain way simply because. Because they’ve seen others do it that way, or because they believe something “works” to inspire creativity because good work resulted (without really knowing which variable among many might be the cause) or because they read something somewhere, a hint about this or that. Hearsay. Conventional wisdom. Trial and error. Unfortunately, that kind of leadership training leaves serious destruction in its wake, in “churn and burn” among employees, in lost accounts, in psychic damage, and more.

A precious few folks will be fortunate to be working in organizations that have inspired creative leadership at the helm. Those lucky staffers can observe and model good leadership behaviors and practices in action. A few creatives also will work in the rare places with formalized leadership training programs. Another small minority are “born” leaders, and seem to innately know what it takes to lead in a creative industry.

This book is for all the rest – for the vast majority of truly talented creative people who've been so wholly consumed by mastering their craft, they haven't even begun to think about what it really means to lead others toward creativity. You may be in the workplace, anticipating your next career move. If you're still in college or university, congratulations for having the foresight to think beyond your first career step (or for being smart enough to be in a program that anticipated it for you). And most importantly, this book is for those who think they're prepared for leadership but who might want to pick up some fresh tips and ideas. You will all come to find out there is more to leadership than you ever imagined.

Take for example, Chiat\Day's failed “virtual office” experiment of the 1990s. (Young people, this was during the unimaginable era before everyone had cell phones and Wi‐Fi in their pockets.) At the time, it was heralded by architecture gurus and the advertising industry as the most amazing, forward‐thinking approach to building an environment for creativity. People would check out a phone and a laptop every morning from a window shaped like a huge pair of red lips, and find some place, any place, to sit for the day. This was supposed to herald the future of the workplace, and spur creativity. Instead, it made creative teams reserve conference rooms every single day, and seize them as de facto offices, and made it nearly impossible to find a co‐worker, as no‐one was ever in the same place twice. The fact that this arrangement is gone, gone, gone, living only in architecture and office design history books, tells you how well that creative experiment worked.

Inspired creative leadership can foster greater creativity, which in turn benefits the creative individuals who make the “product,” the clients they serve, and the bottom line of the companies who embrace the best practices for creative industry leadership. In some special instances, the innovation that grows from great creativity improves lives, even our whole society. This book provides an overview of the knowledge gleaned from decades of scholarly research on creativity and the creative industries. In the hands of talented creative leaders, it can be a powerful tool for spurring awesome creativity and innovation, better lives for the people who labor in the creative industries, and wildly successful organizations.

We'll look at the latest learning from a variety of disciplines, and pull together best practices for leadership in the creative industries, the businesses whose very existence depends upon people generating creativity on demand every single day.

If you're already an expert in creativity and the creative process, feel free to skip Chapter 1. Otherwise, be wary. Without a deep understanding of human creativity, the creative personality, and creative process, trying to lead in a creative industry would be like being dropped onto an alien planet without knowing anything of the species, their habits and culture, or understanding their language. You'd have a pretty difficult time convincing them to do anything you suggest. Skip chapters at your own peril.