Let’s be honest: managing a business sometimes looks like filling a set of extension chores. Figures, processes, kpi, checklists. Everything is square, everything is controlled, everything is rationalized. In short, everything is… flat. But who said that a company should look like a math equation? And if, instead of thinking of you as a Cartesian manager, did you plan to … an artist?
A painter, a musician, a choreographer, a writer. Someone who is looking for, who gropes, who improvises, who dares to dissonance to find harmony. Because, basically, directing, that’s exactly it: a living performance, full of uncertainties, which requires more flair than calculation.
Intuition, your best ally
You remember the last time you have “Feel” A decision, without being able to justify it by a pile of graphics? Maybe you have chosen a collaborator for their energy more than for their CV. Maybe you launched a project because “it vibrated” in you, even if the figures were not yet there.
This small inner voice, often put aside in the rational world of the company, is one of your greatest forces.
Intuition is not magic. It is a shortcut of your brain, nourished by thousands of micro-experienceds accumulated over time. An artist trusts his instinct when he chooses a color or a note; A leader can do the same in his strategic choices.
Creativity as a daily muscle
We talk a lot about creativity as a rare talent. Fake. It’s a muscle. The more you use it, the more powerful it becomes.
But here it is: in most organizations, this muscle is atrophied. Because we spend our days executing rather than inventing, checking boxes rather than playing with possibilities.
So what does the artist do? He is experimenting. He misses, he starts again, he mixes, he diverts. And it is precisely this process that brings out the spark.
And if you introduce the moments in your teams when the error is authorized, when you test without fear, where you dare to get out of the frame? It would not be lost time: it would be an investment in your ability to reinvent yourself.
Constructive disobedience: the art of “and why not?”
The word “disobedience” can be scary. Especially in organizations accustomed to hierarchy, discipline, with written black on white rules. But beware: we are not talking about chaos, free rebellion or anarchy here.
We are talking about constructive disobedience. The one who says: “What if we do otherwise?” The one who dares to shake up a habit because she no longer makes sense. The one that refuses the rule that slows down instead of helping.
The biggest innovations in history come from people who have not respected the rules of the game. The Impressionists challenged the Academy of Fine Arts. The jazzmen rejected the too rigid scores. Visionary entrepreneurs have ignored management manuals.
So why not you?
When Cartesian models show their limits
Let’s be clear: Rationality has its virtues. It structures, it secures, it reassures. But faced with an uncertain, moving, unpredictable world, it quickly reaches its limits.
The Cartesian models assume that the future is predictable, that everything is calculated, that everything is optimized. But reality does not obey these equations. The real is alive, contradictory, moving.
An artist accepts this uncertainty. He composes with her. He knows that a work is never “perfect”, but always in the making. If you agree to adopt this posture, you will release a huge power in your way of directing.
The artist’s leader: hollow portrait
What does a leader like an artist look like an artist like an artist like?
- He listens to his emotions as much as his dashboards.
- He dares improvisation, when the situation requires a quick and intuitive response.
- He invites his teams to co-create, as a director trusts his actors.
- It values accidents, because they open new ways.
- He accepts doubt, without seeing him as a weakness.
- In short, he does not try to be a perfect computer. He claims his humanity.
- From Picasso to Steve Jobs: when art inspires business
Let’s look at the great leaders who have marked their time. Steve Jobs, for example, spoke more of design and poetry than microprocessors. Walt Disney dreamed before counting. Elon Musk (whether you admire it or hate it) often acts as a science fiction screenwriter more than a classic industrialist.
They have in common to think like artists: they imagine, they transgress, they give shape to intuitions.
And history has proved them right.
How to inject art into your management?
Good news: no need to know how to paint or play the violin to become an artist. Some simple gestures are enough to change your posture:
- Block time to dream: one hour a week without a agenda, just to think differently.
- Surround yourself with creative profiles: even if their logic confuses you, it will expand your perspectives.
- Promote metaphors and images in your speeches: they speak stronger than the figures.
- Encourage freedom of testing: an aborted project can be worth more, in the long term, than an ordinary success.
- Learn to listen to your intuitions: note them, test them, dare confront them with reality.
Art as an antidote to the burn-out of meaning
Many leaders finish prisoners of their own systems. They become process managers more than vision carriers. Result: enthusiasm is crumbling, the mission empties from its flame.
Managing like an artist is to find this flame. It is to re -enchant the daily life by accepting that beauty, surprise, poetry have their place in the company. It is to remember that directing is not only “achieving objectives”: it is to create a collective work.
What if, in the end, managing like an artist, was it simply to put joy in the act of directing?
