The report, Creativity and Constraint, leadership and management in the creative industrie paints a picture of unstructured learning environments, little time for training and development and a fairly widespread lack of understanding of the strategic goals of companies, especially in smaller enterprises and amongst freelance staff less able to access training.
It highlights the need for support on leadership, strategy, innovation, financial and people management - and mentoring is cited as the preferred means of developing management skills.
Dr Amy Armstrong, of Ashridge Business School, who co-authored the report, said, "The huge success of the creative industries in the United Kingdom cannot be taken for granted despite the growth of the sector. We must ensure that the training and strategic leadership needs at the top of the industry is supported to maintain this fantastic success."
The report looks at: The skills gaps and development needs of managers and leaders in the creative industries; What constitutes good practice for management and leadership in this sector; How managers and leaders in creative industries learn and therefore what kind of development interventions best suit them.
The report, notes the growth and success of the UK's creative sectors, but also the lack of key leadership and management skills for creative leaders, especially in small and micro companies.
There is also evidence of challenges for creative leaders to make the transition to successful entrepreneurs.
Research was carried out via a literature review, an online survey and face to qualitative research with professionals across a wide variety of the creative industries in both large organisations and smaller enterprises.
Now, both the Creative Skillset and the Ashridge Business School will build recommendations into a leadership and management strategy, including a series of support measures, mentoring support and creative case studies, giving examples of successful training models and collaborative experiential leadership development. These will be housed on Hiive, the Creative Skillset's network for creative people.
Dr Kion Ahadi, Creative Skillset head of research and evaluation, added, "This research flags the urgent need to provide creative leaders with the support they need to continue the huge success of our creative sector. Creative Skillset's leadership and management strategy will build on the findings of the report into solid recommendations which we hope will guide the industry and its' leaders."
(Jim Evans)
