Here's Why More Creative People Should Be In Leadership Roles, According to Advertising Legend David Droga The founder of Droga5 explains why there should be more creatives in the C-suite, and why creatives should start seeing themselves as business leaders.
By Jason Feifer Edited by Frances Dodds
This story appears in the May 2023 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »
David Droga is a CEO. But for a long time, he chose to go by a different title: Creative Chairman. This wasn't one of those cutesy titles, like Chief Fun Officer, that founders and CEOs have been giving themselves for years.
To Droga, the title reminded him of his purpose. He rose to prominence with the advertising agency he founded called Droga5, where he became the most-awarded creative at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity — and where, he admits, he didn't need a specific job title at all.
"I named the company after part of my name," he said. "So I could have called myself 'head schlepper.' It didn't matter." But he picked Creative Chairman to make a point about where creative people belong in the business hierarchy: "Creativity has no ceiling," he said.
The way Droga sees it, creative people are often overlooked in business. Yes, their talents are appreciated. Their work is monetized. But C-suites are rarely filled with creative types, and creative types rarely advocate for themselves as leaders or drivers of business. Droga wants that to change — which is why, when the global professional services company Accenture acquired Droga5 and made him the head of a $16 billion digital communications arm called Accenture Song. He originally kept his Creative Chairman title (eventually handing it over to a colleague this February). Now he uses his megaphone to push for more leaders like himself.
Related: Why Your Creativity Is Your Most Valuable Skill
Here, Droga explains why creatives should be major decision-makers — and the mistakes they often make while trying to get there.
Why aren't more creatives in leadership roles?
There's a false narrative that all creative people are irresponsible; that we are only concerned with the soft stuff.
At my own agency, the business plan was to make relevant, influential work, to work with people that I liked, and to produce a product that I thought was world-class. I've never thought in my entire career, How much money can I extract from this situation? I would always think, What can we do? I think the average CEO from a business track thinks, What can I get out of this situation? A creative person thinks, What can I add to this situation? What can I give to this?
How did you originally make the leap from a creative to CEO — or, I'm sorry, Creative Chairman?
When I first started, I was a really selfish creative person. I wanted to do everything myself. I had a lot of success doing that. Then as I moved up the food chain, I discovered that I actually liked other people's ideas as much as mine. I liked helping their ideas come to life. I felt like I'd opened the aperture of what it was to be a creator.
It wasn't like I suddenly woke up and thought, "I want to do spreadsheets or talk about creative values." That's not how I'm wired. But I am wired to want to see the impact of what we do. I can have more of a say in what we stand for.
Related: Creating a Culture of Innovation Starts With the Leader
You want to see more creative people in leadership positions. That means you see something lacking in how many current leaders think. What is that?
I think a lot of people get promoted because they can move and pivot between roles and be great managers of people, and they're great with the purse strings. They don't really understand the essence of what they make.
Don't get me wrong, I understand the need for people who know how to operationalize things. But they can't forget what they're in service of. If they're working for a company that makes a certain product, that product is their lifeline and their oxygen. You're not going to grow a company into the future with efficiency plays.
Not every person in the C-suite needs to be a creative person. It would be pandemonium. I'm just advocating for there to be more.
Now you're a CEO, but you clearly identify as a creative person. Is that so you don't lose touch with the creative side?
I'm sure that's true. It's funny, because when people talk to me and assume that I'm a regular CEO, I almost worry, "Do they know that I'm actually a creative person?" I'm a compromise, because I'm part creative. And I'm not just pure business. And for me, I was like, I love being in the middle. I love being creative in an environment where it's creativity with accountability. I really like that part of it, that's why I didn't choose a side.
Related: How To Use Entrepreneurial Creativity For Innovation
Are creative people excluded, or are they also not pursuing leadership paths enough?
There's a myth for creative people. I remember when I was running an agency and it was going public. They created a stock program. It was an amazing offer, and 100% of the business-side people signed up. In the creative department, which was about 200 people, 25% signed up. I remember thinking, We are so stupid, because we think that if we are good with money or that we even think about money, that we are no longer purely creative. I want the people who are at the center of it and creating ideas to also feel like they have a reward for that.
What do creatives bring to a leadership role that noncreatives don't?
To be a creative person doesn't mean you have to have gone to art school. It's a mindset. It's about looking at things and having the audacity to think beyond the next quarter. Creative people jump ahead of things, and we also are very good at reducing things back to their simplicity. I always said that if ever I had a superpower, it's that I can dumb down anything, because there's so much complexity in the world now.
Is there a way for the creative side and the business side to meet in the middle?
Creative people are thinking about the end user. A lot of the operational people are just thinking about the practicality of getting something done. And you said a phrase that scares the shit out of me, which is "the middle." It's the mediocre middle that compromises everything. It's neither here nor there. Most companies are about taking dictation, not about giving real opinions. How can I tell the client what he wants to hear, versus what they need to hear? Maybe creative people are more cocky or confident because they're thinking about the emotion or potential of something. I've always had this saying, which is: Thank goodness for the logical and linear thinkers — they make the world go round. But it's the creative people who make it worth living in. And we need both.
What do you say to someone who identifies as a creative, and wants more influence?
Have empathy for the person you're talking to on the other side of the table. Understand the problem you're trying to solve, as opposed to just trying to sell something cool or that you think is creative and fun.
When you take the business side of it into consideration, and what a creative idea is solving for, then I think you've got more chance of landing it — as opposed to just selling something because it's creative. I want to use creativity as a shortcut to get to solving. It doesn't cost more to be great.
