The folks over at Disney Institute are spotlighting resources that inspire their team on the topics of business leadership, culture, service, brand loyalty, creativity and innovation. One of their recent reads is Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand In the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull, co-founder and president of Pixar Animation.

In the book, Catmull says: “I believe that everyone has the potential to be creative.” What this means is, if everyone has creative potential, we must be very intentional in our actions as leaders in order to unleash it as a force for continuous innovation.

Creativity and innovation is the product of intentional leadership.

Here are Catmull’s first four principles*:

• It isn’t enough merely to be open to ideas from others. Engaging the collective brainpower of the people you work with is an active, ongoing process. As a manager, you must coax ideas out of your staff and constantly push them to contribute.
• It is not the manager’s job to prevent risks. It is the manager’s job to make it safe to take them.
• Our job as managers in creative environments is to protect new ideas from those who don’t understand that in order for greatness to emerge, there must be phases of not-so-greatness. Protect the future, not the past.
• Excellence, quality and good should be earned words, attributed by others to us, not proclaimed by us about ourselves.

Great stuff to think about as leaders!

Looking for more from this book? Here are 37 inspiring leadership quotes from the book that will help your team build a culture of innovation:

*Sourced from: Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand In the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull via Disney Institute blog.