Celebrity is not Leadership

"Famous people are interesting, but there's a kind of a distancing phenomenon there. I'm interested in the creativity that we all put into our lives. Picasso's life story is not empowering to the creativity of ordinary people. What is empowering is looking at someone that they can identify with. And becoming aware of what they're already doing." 

Mary Bateson

Most of the people we celebrate as being creative are people we've never met, and who have never touched our lives. We are inspired by the story, not the experience and the impact is transient and vicarious - experienced through others, not ourselves.

Which is a shame, because the real creativity happens around us, not in big dramatic lumps but in small important increments. They are the people who stretch the rules to breaking point in search of something better.

Teachers who have found ways to look after their students despite the chaos they find themselves in, when the only thing they are offered by the authorities is money. Paren…