I have always tried to surround myself with sharp people. Not 'yes' people who execute without friction, but people who challenge the thinking, even if they need a little coaxing, and demand more from the craft. People that are not afraid to say when something is not working, and more importantly, how to make it better.

Some of us resist this. The fear is understandable, if not particularly useful: if I bring someone in who is that capable, what does that say about me? Will they upstage me? Make me look bad? Threaten my position? These are the wrong questions. Your job is not to outshine your team. Your value is not diminished by the quality of the people around you. It is defined by it.

This does not mean your only job is that of a conductor. You need to be able to play the instruments too. To recognize the moment when the team needs you to put your idea on the wall, when the energy is low or the direction is lost, and a couple of good examples can quickly ignite the flow of more. That is not ego. That is reading the room. And be ready for those ideas to be quickly substituted by better ones. A good team will do exactly that.

Creative leadership is about creating that safe space. To ask before answering. To trust that the people across from you have something worth hearing, and to build the conditions where they feel that too.

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"As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."‍

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Sharp people make you sharper. That is not a metaphor. It is how it works. You bring someone into the room who sees things differently, who asks the question nobody thought to ask, who has a different relationship to the problem, and suddenly the whole conversation moves to a place it would not have found on its own.

It is not about being afraid of hiring people that may or may not know more than you, or be more creative than you, or less. It is about strengthening the team, adding new perspectives. For every member of the team. To help each other think deeper, contribute more, and feel free to fail.

As Frank and Ollie legendary Disney animators knew, great things are built upon mutual professional and creative respect: only iron sharpens iron. And the job is not to kill ideas. It is to elevate and inspire better ones.

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