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How to Be a Boss

Creative Leadership for Dummies…

Thom Bettridge
Sep 09, 2025
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Attention Economics is a series of reference texts on the fundamental principles of CONTENT. You have to pay to read the whole thing. (Sorry!)

With all the big new debuts taking place in fashion and beyond, I’m revisiting a topic that I think about a lot: Creative Leadership.

Being a good Creative Leader is an urgent paradox: Most creative people don’t grow up aspiring to manage dozens of people (I didn’t), but if you do it badly you can fail horrendously and make other people’s lives a living hell in the process. And even if you master that part, managing upwards and laterally so that your creative vision makes sense for the company you work for is even more nuanced.

Creative Leadership is also an under-represented topic within the vast canon business books. I’ve read a lot of great books by venture capitalists, generals, and even a couple fashion founders (this one and this one) that have helped me learn about leadership, but it always takes a leap to extrapolate those lessons into the context of creative work. (If they’re any great books on Creative Leadership you’ve encountered, link them below.)

I’ve had these maxims about Creative Leadership in my Notes app for about three years. Occasionally I update them by tweaking, adding, and deleting certain things. But I think they are a helpful set of operating principles for any Creative Leader. Even if you’re not at the stage in your career yet where you are leading (or even if you never plan to), it’s still important to think about what a good boss should look like and to demand that yours rises to the occasion.

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