Leading creative people: lessons from advertising guru Jacques Séguéla

SummaryIn this article, we explore perspectives on how to lead creative people through examples from a practitioner. We interviewed iconic French advertising guru Jacques Séguéla, Chief Communication Officer of Havas, France’s second largest and the world’s sixth largest advertising and communication company, who leads 800 designers worldwide. Séguéla is famous for creating successful advertising and political campaigns, and authoring numerous best-selling books on advertising. Through a series of real-life anecdotes, Séguéla talks about the importance of emotions, emotional intelligence, action, and intuition in leading creative people. Following the interview, we discuss some of Séguéla’s key assertions in relation to existing leadership and management theories.