The Fire Starter and the Brand Steward: An Examination of Successful Leadership Traits for the Advertising-Agency Creative Director

This article seeks to uncover the complexities of the creative director’s leadership role in advertising agencies.

The Fire Starter and the Brand Steward: An Examination of Successful Leadership Traits for the Advertising-Agency Creative Director

Karen L. Mallia

University of South Carolina

Kasey Windels

Louisiana State University

Sheri J. Broyles

University of North Texas

Management slant

  • Three primary types of skills were demonstrated by successful creative directors: creative expertise, strategy expertise, and soft skills (relational and inter-personal communication skills).
  • Most successful creative directors are charismatic and provide inspiration as they motivate and guide, sell creative work, and build the culture of the creative department.
  • The creative director must be...

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands