Scroll Top
Building a Creative Identity, Not Just a Portfolio
August 21, 2025 Brand Leadership Career Growth Creativity Leadership Management Strategy Teamwork
Featuring
Donna Lamar, Global Head of Video Content & Entertainment at Spotify

Donna Lamar is the artistic powerhouse behind some of our most memorable cultural brand moments. As global head of video content and entertainment at Spotify, she’s the visionary who helped redefine how music connects with audiences. Before Spotify, Donna led Twitter’s brand transformation, created iconic Nike campaigns, and brought stories to life at Disney and VICE. She’s made a name for herself as the creative who knows how to make brands feel human and how to keep creativity alive in corporate spaces. As a creative leader, Donna is passionate about helping develop creatives find and hone their unique and authentic identities.

Aligning values with vision: A creative identity conversation.

Exploring the idea of creative identity feels like a luxury, but the question of what it means to create has become inextricable from the question of who we are when everyone’s watching. While social media feedback loops continue to accelerate and artificial intelligence prompts creatives to question everything, understanding and nurturing your creative identity when your work requires you to be both authentic and strategic has never been more vital.

In this episode, Donna Lamar shares how to align your values with your work, navigate through and beyond constant feedback without losing your voice, and build and maintain fertile ground for authentic creativity to flourish in yourself and in your teams.

View Transcript
mentioned in this show:
adammorgan
Adam Morgan
Creative Leader and RCL Host
stoke-logo
The Stoke Group
Digital Marketing and Full-Service Content Agency
Prev
Next

Leave a comment

REAL CREATIVE LEADERSHIP

Season: 6

Episode: 2

Episode Title: Building a Creative Identity, Not Just a Portfolio

Guest Title:
Donna Lamar, Global Head of Video Content & Entertainment, Spotify

++++++

Adam Morgan

Welcome back to Real Creative Leadership. Today we’re talking with Donna Lamar, Head of Video Content and Entertainment at Spotify. Donna’s taken many creative paths in her career from movies and video games to big name brands and agency work. And being a creative means a lot of reinvention of oneself, of brands of creative work, but showing up in a different way can feel tricky to pull off in our instant feedback culture.

So in this episode we’re gonna talk about the concept of creative identity, how it fits in our creative work, what creative leaders can do to give creative teams belief in brands and in themselves. So welcome to the show, Donna.

Donna Lamar

Hi. Thank you and I’m happy to be here.

Adam Morgan

Oh, excellent. Well, your resume is awesome.

It’s a laundry list of names from Apple and Disney and Twitter and Nike. So you’ve had quite a journey, and it’s really awesome for our listeners to hear different career paths and different experiences that people have had, but what aspects of your career have influenced your creative leadership style the most?

Donna Lamar

I have to say like way back early in the days before I was a leader per se — I mean, I was, I was a manager, but I wasn’t actually a leader. I didn’t feel like I was a leader. I think that’s probably more accurate to say I was at Wieden Kennedy before I went brand side. And it was really formative experience because in that agency, it was all about creativity, and they would just sort of send you off with a project, and you were supposed to return with something amazing, and it was highly competitive. It was really fun, and it was also like a group of people who didn’t quite fit anywhere else specifically, but some kind of way we all fit together.

And I think that that was very formative for me in terms of how I access creativity and, and actually how I manage and lead now. So it was like having the freedom to go off and be. And then come back, I think is very formative for me as a leader.

Adam Morgan

Well, it’s interesting you say that ’cause I dunno, many creative leaders don’t really feel like the think of themselves as leaders, right?

It’s just we’re all creatives first. And I guess that’s the beauty of, of it being a different type of leadership. It’s not like, you know, regular management or, some other, some other field. But, yeah, the creativity is really what we identify with. And now it’s just more of have you had enough experience now that you can turn around and give a, a helping hand to those who are following you? Or do you have enough experience now that you’re like, okay, I shouldn’t, you know, maybe I, I see a lot with creativity. It’s a lot of just like wild, organic, just kind of figuring things out. But what what I love is after I talk with people, it’s like, no, there’s actually, there are lessons that we’ve learned along the way that definitely help us solidify like, this is a great way to do it.

Okay, so let’s get into this idea of creative identity. So I’d love to just start out with you giving us a definition of your thoughts on what is a creative identity.

Donna Lamar

I will do that and I’m actually going to make sure I get it right. I’m gonna read it to you because 

Adam Morgan

Perfect. 

Donna Lamar

Just because I wanna make sure, ’cause it’s something that I’ve been thinking about. I started thinking about it in 2019, right? And from then to now, the industry has changed and sort of the way I think about creative identity has also changed. So I think I wanna start from a mindset that my I am, I took this whole creative ID situation from a mindset that creativity and identity are intrinsically linked.

They’re linked together. I don’t think that you can actually separate that. So then the question becomes like, well, if you have a belief system that we’ve adhered to since we were young, where we would like, as we explored who we are — you know who we are, like just centrally who we are, and then how do we express who we are?

Then if you think about that, you think about like, I could be an artist, I could be a visionary, I could be a philosopher, I could be all of those things, which is amazing, and the way that we express those things are through like our actions and whatever it is that we tend to do. But the notion of creative ID is basically, how do you use your creativity with the express sort of desire to become like a brand? You know, like that is a weird thing. It’s just like, what is the curated expression of our creativity that could lead to brand sponsorship? And that’s when I say creative ID, that’s what I’m talking about.

And it’s, it’s, I don’t know. I think it’s a very interesting thing because we live in a world right now of influencers and of, like social media and everything where everyone knows what it’s like every, when you say brand yourself, what do people say? People —

Adam Morgan

Mm-hmm. 

Donna Lamar

Know what that means. 10 years ago, if you were, I guess 2019 is not quite 10 years ago, but in 2019, people were talking about like normal people who are now influencers, were talking about like, how do I become a brand? What does that mean? How do I get sponsorship? And that was not part of the conversation, but it is very much part of the conversation now and part of who we are as creative individuals and how the world actually operates in terms of like brands and advertising and just how we move through life.

Adam Morgan

Yeah, there are a lot of things that I just want to kind of dig into that I think are really, really fascinating with this topic because realistically, most of our audience here are creative professionals who either work for a brand or an agency.

Donna Lamar

Yep.

Adam Morgan

And at least in my experience in, you know, in the last 30 years, it’s been mostly around, how am I in service of my client or in service of my brand or in service of my company? And you start to feel like you’re this just creative mercenary, right? You talked about the Wieden Kennedy days, give an assignment runoff and come back with brilliance and it better sell something, right? Like it’s, it’s gotta, there’s gotta be a project, there’s gotta be something tied to it, which is fine. Like, we’re not out here being creative and just creating art on our own necessarily. Sometimes we’re doing it for companies, right? So this idea of a creative ID where it’s not just, hey, I’m plugging in whatever client account thing and I’ll just make it look beautiful or make it sound beautiful.

But you’re saying like, deep down there are intrinsic things within us that from our culture, from our growing up, from our likes and dislikes and our just lived experience, that we’re gonna give a little bit more to that, to that experiment of doing art or creative for companies, and that we gotta pay attention a little bit more to it ’cause yes, when we become our own brand, it’s not just a matter of like, ta-da, I’m just this fully formed thing, that jumps outta the world and becomes an influencer. You gotta like, dig in a little bit and understand who am I? What do I stand for? What matters to me? What are the things that influence my creative ID? Do I have that correct?

Donna Lamar

You do have to dig into it. Absolutely. But I think you have to do that anyway. But I think what I am trying to say is that we are finding our creative, we’re finding it and creating ourself through consistent creative immersion. Like that’s, that’s how we, that’s how we find out who we are. That’s our identity, right? But now we’re moving, or we have moved to finding a creative identity through a feedback loop. And that feedback loop is like social media or our friends on social media or the branding that we work for. And that’s because the world itself has changed in the way that we communicate.

So I think for like myself and probably my generation or, or the generation before me, working as a creative was very much like exploration of your identity through bringing that identity into a marketing or an advertising space, right? 

Adam Morgan

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

Donna Lamar

So, like you are a hundred percent like bringing yourself and your ideas into, it is a market, space, and a marketplace, but it’s not for the purpose of marketing, or it’s like it’s for the purpose of actually bringing yourself and showing up in a way that maybe other people don’t know. Like, I mean culturally. ‘Cause if you look at the advertising industry, years and years ago, it was very, it was less diverse than it is now and now into 2026. It is great to have a creative team of people with diverse backgrounds and ideas because that’s reflective of the world that we live in. Like that’s, but it wasn’t like that before. So before, if you were to come into advertising, your creative, your identity, your actual self was, was what was on display.

It was like what I’m bringing to the table is my belief system, my cultural touchpoints. Just who I am, and I’m bringing this into a space, and I’m providing a viewpoint or yeah, a point of view for others to actually understand who I am based in this cultural space, while also like diversifying, everyone’s experience, but now we live in a world where we’re so connected, like we’re so connected by technology, like there’s more — people see more, and they know more culturally, and there’s a lot of cross integration of like music and film and literature and just all of it sort of intersects now, which is a very, very good thing. But you take the intersections with the sort of feedback that we get, and there has to now be distance, a little bit of distance between you as a brand and you as just a creative individual.

Adam Morgan

The part of us acting as our own, like becoming our own brand totally makes sense. And maybe that’s the difference of like where, you know, when I started in the nineties in advertising, you weren’t your own brand. You were just a cog in the wheel trying to create bigger stories and brands. And now with all this feedback and influencer marketing and all these other things, like we’re not just helping you create brands, but we’re all influencing them from our own creative IDs.

Donna Lamar

Yeah, for sure. That is exactly what we’re doing. Like that model didn’t really exist back in the day. I believe that’s what, how you started this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We really are like, we as creative professionals are, in a way, low-tier influencers now. I mean, like, we’re not out there trying to gain audiences in the way that influencers amass their audiences now. But what we believe, what we think, how we think influences the work that we put out into the world. And in a way that is much more measurable than it was before.

Adam Morgan

Well, what do you think is the most misunderstood part about creative identity, then, that people aren’t grasping?

Donna Lamar

I think so. I don’t know that it’s so much misunderstood as like when I started thinking about creative ID, I was really worried because there was a time like maybe three or four years ago that I noticed that the first influencers who were like, they probably started when they were 16, something like that, and now they were 26 or 24, I realized that they felt like they’d already accomplished so much and then they didn’t know, and they were very connected to everything, but it was all based in them, as a brand, trying to seek approval from like the masses.

Like that’s the feedback loop. So if for, for 10 years of your life and you start at 16, what you’re doing at is creating a brand or creating yourself as a brand, and then you just like creative direction in any other part of this business, your creative direction is coming from like the populace, not necessarily from a branded entity, but an actual, like the populace. And if you change your mind, or you change your brand, or you change yourself based on the feedback that you get, at some point, I think that becomes, it becomes hard to understand what your point of view really is as a individual. But working in this industry as a creative individual, and for many, many years, you do what makes you good or what makes you stand out is actually being yourself and bringing those parts of yourself that are not necessarily visible to other people, right? So that is actually, it’s a Catch-22 situation, but we were trained, or at least I don’t know, that I was necessarily trained, but before, when everybody wasn’t a brand, there was sort of an understanding and a foundation to how one came or approached creativity within the context of business.

Adam Morgan

Hmm.

Donna Lamar

And I, and that, and we have that now, but we have that as a widespread point of view across influencers, across brands, across like marketing orgs. So, the part that I was worried about, or like the young, you know, young kids coming up. Part of being able to to sustain creativity and sustain that sort of enthusiasm for life is not being at 24 years old, having made it, and not understanding what it is that you truly like.

Adam Morgan

Hmm. So, let’s dig into the the Donna’s creative identity. Uhhuh. How did you discover yours? How would you explain yours so that you could better give someone some guidance if they were trying to look for their own?

Donna Lamar

Well, I didn’t actually even understand that I had a creative ID until I got into the business, you know, into the business of it. I’ve always thought of myself as just a creative individual, and I would like pursue the things that I liked, and I had an interest in and, which is what I still do. That is what I currently do. But it was not until I started thinking about, okay, I am actually in a business, and I’m in a business that is, that does influence people, influences a lot of people, right? What is the message that I’m putting out in the world that aligns with the brands that I’m working with? Then it becomes really important. At least it became important to me to make sure that I aligned myself with companies and brands that I thought were a reflection of my own values. And so then when I started thinking down those lines, and I was lucky, like I worked a lot on Nike, like I was an athlete, I mean

Adam Morgan

Mm-hmm. 

Donna Lamar

Loved Nike, you know, so it wasn’t really anything to think about ’cause I already love, in fact, I don’t think I’ve actually worked on a brand that I don’t love or —

Adam Morgan

Lucky.

Donna Lamar

Don’t align with or don’t like. And part of that is because once I understood that working with those brands that I think align with my values that help shape my creativity because I am putting creativity into the world for others and and I never look, and I never look at my job as something, as I’m selling something, but in reality, I am actually selling something.

Adam Morgan

Mm-hmm.

Donna Lamar

You know, and once that clicked for me, I was like, I have to be very, very careful to align myself with brands and partners that reflect my my own personal values.

Adam Morgan

Well, I’ve I’ve had a similar and not similar experience. I mean, I, when I went brand side, brands such as Adobe, I absolutely loved it. Like I built my career on on creativity and I loved it. And then the last two companies from Splunk to Twilio, I am also a nerd, and I just love developers and the whole scene, so that those align great. I think back though, being in an agency sometimes, you know, I may have to work on a a bank or some account that I don’t dislike, but I don’t love. I I definitely had some accounts that were all, when I worked at Riddell, and it was all outdoor recreational stuff, from hiking boots to car wrecks, you know, I absolutely loved that. But yeah, there were some moments that I definitely have to word on a lot of accounts or even man back in the day of writing radio jingles — 

 

Donna Lamar

Yeah.

Adam Morgan

That, you know, I’m ashamed that I had to work on that back in the nineties, but, anyhow, it’s an interesting thing of like how you find what you stand for and what speaks to your soul, and then also what pays the bills. You know, I’m sure there’s a lot of people that have that that conflict.

Donna Lamar

It’s very hard, right? Yeah. It’s really hard, particularly in advertising and marketing, and I think it becomes harder the longer you stay in the business, right? It becomes harder the longer you stay in the business. And, and it, for me it was the realization that the fun that I was having was really business.

Adam Morgan

Hmm.

Donna Lamar

You know, because it was fun. Like, it’s really fun to come up with an idea, pitch it to a group of people, have them say, yes, we understand it, or yes, we like it, or, well actually more times than not, we like that. But can you blah, blah, blah. That’s really, yeah, actually more likely than not, that what really happens, but it still gives you a feeling of being heard and seen. And the further you go into or the further up you progress, I guess, in a company, you still have that, but you have the responsibility as well. So that’s what’s great about being a creative coming into a space. But I have to say, the creatives that are coming into brands now — they come completely equipped with, like, they come already with the knowledge that they are selling something. It’s something that they wanna do, and it’s, and it’s more about “how do I progress up this ladder and become a creative director?” or become whatever the thing is. Rather than like the experience that I had earlier in my career where it was a bunch of people who were like, gosh, what are we doing? Oh, we’re not sure. Let’s just go make something. You know, I think the fact that we are now so connected and have so many tools, like there are so many tools to available to people right now. You can literally go out and make something, which is. Freeing and amazing. And I mean, like Adobe, come on. Adobe literally changed the industry, and it continues to change.

So that is all really, really good stuff. And it’s just progress. But I do think it changes. Well, it only changes because the industry itself changes, right? So maybe, maybe I was gonna call them kids, so I’m really dating myself, right? But you know, people who are new in the industry, they come in with a hunger and an excitement, but they also come equipped with knowledge that I probably, it probably took me five or 10 years to get.

Adam Morgan

Yeah. And when you talk about “they come fully equipped,” it makes me also question, just looking back in my experience of — are there certain environments that help you build that creative identity better? Like when I was an agency, and I was sharing all these ideas and just getting all my ideas killed in front of me constantly, but it helped me learn to come up with ideas faster and learn that creative process better.

So, are there certain environments that are better for creating your identity or others that are worse for it? Or is it all just experience?

Donna Lamar

I think it’s all just experience. Working on the agency side of things, there’s it is a faster pace.

Adam Morgan

Mm-hmm. 

Donna Lamar

It’s way more competitive, meaning that you have a bunch of really hungry people with really good ideas who are always nipping at your heels. I mean, like, that’s, that’s part of it, right? But what it also brings, which I think is very helpful and useful for later, either in your career or when you go brand side, is a rigor.

Adam Morgan

Yes. Yes.

Donna Lamar

Being like. Being on the agency side gives one a rigor to like continually press and ask the questions to get to a place of creativity that I don’t wanna sound like — well, I do kind of wanna sound that way — so I’ll use the word transcend so that the work itself transcends what it’s meant to do as like a piece of advertising or branding, but it becomes work that resonates with people in a way that is truly connective. And I really do think that having worked on an agency side first gives, it helps me. It helps me with rigor, and that’s something very fundamental to like life, really. Yeah, like the persistence to continue to pursue until you get it right or until it feels right. ’cause a lot of times you try a bunch of things in the feedback that you’re given because people are telling you that this is the thing, this is the thing, this is the thing. But the amazing thing about creativity and creative ID, because they are linked, is that you know when it’s right because it feels right.

Adam Morgan

Like, well, you’re a lot nicer about it. You call it rigor. I used to just say living in the trenches. Like for me, that’s what, that’s what it was like is, you’re right. It’s like such a fast pace and such an intensity that —

Donna Lamar

Yeah.

Adam Morgan

You had to just sink or swim, like you had to really fight for it. You had to like really, really work at it. And I think it was really good for me. I mean, those were formative years for sure. 

Donna Lamar

Yeah.

Adam Morgan 

And it’s not to say that everyone has to start their career in an agency. Some people can start it on a brand site, some people can’t. But it’s still about, like, I like this idea of, of formulating or forming your creative ID. You have to find rigor one way or another. You have to find the the desire, the intensity. To keep going until you find out what’s what’s that right thing for you?

Donna Lamar

You do. You do. And like, and the other thing that also happens when you are going through the rigorous process of being in the trenches is that you start to understand what you actually believe, and you start to understand the kind of work that you want to do.

Adam Morgan

Mm-hmm.

Donna Lamar

And you start to understand how you want to show up in the world. And that’s all all of those things are intrinsic to who you are as a person to your your identity, your soul identity, not your creative identity, but who you are as a person.

Adam Morgan

All right, Donna. So, we’ve talked a little bit about the creative ID and how you form it and how you create your own brand and how you’re really digging into understanding who you are and what you stand for, all those things. But you’ve said this many times of this constant feedback culture, and you mentioned it also with social media, but I’d love to dig into that more. How does this feedback affect us, and where does all this feedback come from?

Donna Lamar

I think if you are if you are a younger creative and you’re hungry and you’re trying to make it in the world or make it in the space that you are in the world, constant feedback if you choose to take it, and it’s almost impossible not to take it, right?

Adam Morgan

Mm-hmm. 

Donna Lamar

I think it really influences sort of the decisions that you make creatively. It would be different if it was, you know, okay, these six people over here are like, you know, what you just presented to me is crap. I don’t understand it. You are like, you’re like, okay, well maybe that’s you. Or maybe not, maybe it’s me, but it’s it’s something that you can actually weigh. But if you are constantly being critiqued by people that you don’t know on social media, which is what we all are in that world right now, it does have an effect on how you create. You start then creating for, or you start guessing or trying to anticipate what the feedback will be and then creating in that way versus, “here’s my vision.” “This is how I got to that vision.” But if you’re already changing your point of view before you even ever present it based on feedback that you’re getting constantly, I I don’t know. I don’t feel that that’s the best way to do work.

Adam Morgan

Hmm mm-hmm.

Donna Lamar

But maybe for this generation it is, but I don’t feel like — I don’t, I don’t know. My question would be — has the work gotten better? I mean, like you’ve been in the industry, it’s gotten certainly quicker. 

Adam Morgan

Yeah, for sure. 

Donna Lamar

And it’s, it’s quicker. You can see things that are pretty astounding that you would not have been able to see or do or make. But has it gotten better? I like I don’t know who answers that question. I guess it depends on who the work is for. But for me, and it’s just because I’m a specific type of person, when I feel moved by work, when I look at work and I go, gosh, that was so obvious, but it’s something I never thought of. I am like, wow. And that’s so hard to do, right? It’s really hard. 

Adam Morgan

Mm-hmm. 

Donna Lamar

To to represent an idea in a way that feels new.

 

Adam Morgan

I’m definitely not an authority figure. You know, there are a lot of us out there. We’re, we’re all together on this, but I would say, my experience is there have always been great ideas and there’s always been a lot of crap and it’s just been, the way it’s been forever. There are some ideas that nowadays I’ll see and I’ll just be like, yeah, I’m moved. I feel something. There are great things that I’ve saw, in the mid-nineties when I started that I thought was amazing. But that feedback culture is very different now. 

Donna Lamar

Yeah. 

Adam Morgan

I think back when I was starting out in my career, it was a lot more formal, at least maybe this is just an agency thing where it was — come up with a bunch of ideas, have an internal review, have a creative director look at it and give me specific feedback on. This sucks. This is good. This is amazing. Keep pushing on this one. Right? Like there was very formal feedback, and I don’t see that as much like on inside brands because we’re just all so split into different responsibilities and things. It’s different. But I think it was a good thing, like, lemme just, there’s something about like the, there was a critique on the design philosophy where we talk about innovation and iteration and trying to get to all these great ideas. But what was missing in the design process is feedback. And I think that is a critical part of formulating what’s good and understanding what’s great and feeling it, right? So that you, like your brain learns those feelings so that later on when you’re producing it again, you know if it’s, if something’s good or not.

Donna Lamar

I agree. There are just a couple of things with that. ‘Cause I think feedback is a hundred percent necessary in moving work along a hundred percent. And those rooms still exist. At least they still exist, at Spotify actually, where you come in and, work is presented, and then feedback is given, and you go off and you react to it in some way or another.

Adam Morgan

Well, let’s dig in a little bit more. So we’ve established that we have these creative IDs with these creative identities that we’ve grown and cultivated over the years. And then we go work for a brand that we hopefully believe in. But how does the work and the creative identity intersect? Do they clash? Are they positive all the time together? Is it, is it a matter of like how you’re seeing this today? Where thing, where it’s coming together, and is it making it better now that we’re our own individual brands? Or is it, or is it making it worse?

Donna Lamar

I, that’s a hard question for me to answer because, you know, just from personal experience, I think, like I work at a brand right now that deals in music, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So music is very personal to everyone, and particularly to fans and actually artists. It’s very personal. So music as the service makes the work fun and interesting because there are so many different ways in because it is so personal, right? So bringing your own personal self to work, at Spotify is like, it’s totally important, right? Like you’re representing a fan, or you’re representing, a curator, or you’re representing, depending upon what your relationship to music is and the brief. So you are bringing yourself to something that you can identify with for others, hopefully, right? So music is like awesome. So, I think it works very well in that way. But I do think that bringing your creative ID to a product that is not necessarily one that you identify with or you like, or whatever, I dunno what, I don’t know what term to use. Here. You could have clash, right? 

Adam Morgan

Mm-hmm. 

Donna Lamar

Because then, you, you could clash. And also as a creative professional, though, I do believe what you can bring, all creative professionals don’t have to love whatever it is that they’re doing.

In fact, part of creativity is being able to understand what that product is or what that service is and bring something new to it. But I do think if you can bring your whole self and use your personal feelings or leanings or just if you bring your whole self, the work is always going to be, I think, a little bit better. It may not be what is asked for, but I do think that bringing yourself your whole self and your identity to the work is, I mean, that’s why you’re creative. That’s why you’re hired, right? 

Adam Morgan

Mm-hmm. 

Donna Lamar

You’re hired because of who you are and how you see the world.

Adam Morgan

Yeah. Yeah. I agree. For me, a a big exclamation point for this whole conversation is doing work, but bringing your whole self to it. So bringing your creative ID and the creative work that you’re actually making for whatever brand, whatever thing, project it is that you’re doing will make it better. By just putting your, you know, it’s like your heart and soul into it, right? It’s bringing all the —

Donna Lamar

Yeah. 

Adam Morgan

Things and nuances and lessons and what makes you special and unique and adding that into the project rather than it just being a generic projects and and you just pump out the work. I think that is an interesting element of how we can make the world a better place. And one thing I think is really interesting just in today’s conversation of AI, like there’s so much talk about AI. This is actually a really interesting anecdote to it because creators who have a nice ID who understand their brand, they understand who they are. They are absolutely bringing something unique and special into every project that that AI is not gonna be able to figure that out. Like it can copy someone, it can go out and pull together examples and recreate something from the past, but that uniqueness that you’re talking about, and so it may be like every project, depending on who you’re working with and what you’re doing. That special, creative idea is what’s gonna make it unique and well above, just like a standard AI prompt.

Donna Lamar

I think so. I really do think that, I just finished a book last night, and I don’t know if I’m allowed to do this and it’s —

Adam Morgan

Yeah, yeah, do it. 

Donna Lamar

But I just finished a book called The Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor. It’s brilliant. I think everybody should read it. But it talks about, it’s a story within a story within a story. And so one of the stories in there are about these rusted robots and you have humes, which are like based on human form. And then you have the nobodies which don’t have bodies, and there’s a whole discourse in the book between — and then there’s a human writer. But there’s a whole discourse in the book about what makes someone a writer or what, what, what makes something an actual story. And it’s very interesting because it’s very much parallels AI and and it’s uses. I haven’t used a lot of AI because right now I am kind of a curmudgeon. I’ve used it because obviously I have to, and like that’s what the industry is. But I do feel like as a tool to help, I think it’s great. But when I really do sit down to write, I don’t know. I don’t think, or at least I hope. That whatever it is that I am bringing to it, whatever it is that I’m writing, is something that can’t be replicated.

Adam Morgan

Mm-hmm.

Donna Lamar

Words can be replicated, a lot of words can bring specific feelings, but what can’t be replicated is what is intrinsically me. If I am able to communicate that in a way that people can receive it.

Adam Morgan

Yeah. I love it. I love it. Let’s switch topics to our last section here and on this podcast. Certainly, we always wanna bring every topic back to creative leadership. 

Donna Lamar

Yeah. 

Adam Morgan

That’s what the whole thing is all about. We wanna talk about a creative leader’s role in how we can help this. Help this creative identity with our teams or how we can help build it in our own selves and how we can use constant feedback in the right ways to help build our team. So, let’s talk about what does it mean for a creative leader? How can they help build creative identity and build better work with better feedback?

Donna Lamar

I think I always try to give basically onus or ownership to the creatives for the work. 

Adam Morgan

Mm-hmm.

Donna Lamar 

Like, I’m here to guide and, and to use as a sounding board, but I’m not here to specifically instruct that you do something a way. Like I I I had a situation not too long ago where I was shown work and I thought it was good work and I was like, yeah, this is good. You know, like, I think it works. And my question is always if we have multiple executions, I’m always like, which do you prefer? 

Adam Morgan

Mm-hmm. 

Donna Lamar

You know, which one do you want to sell through? And, and I wait for an answer and, then, I’m like, okay, great. I mean, let’s make sure we order it, and we are clear about when we go in to present what we’re trying to sell through. And for me, I, this is something that I’ve done for like most of my career. But I have I found out that maybe sometimes there needs to be more sort of guidance.

Adam Morgan

Mm-hmm.

Donna Lamar

And the fact that I was just like, yeah, I think these are good. Let’s go in. Which one do you prefer? Let’s go with that. To me, that was like the ultimate in freedom for, from a creative point of view as a creative leader, right? Give the team, you know, do your thing. 

Adam Morgan

Yeah. 

Donna Lamar

But yeah. I do think I hadn’t considered kind of the world that we live in now and and all of the different backgrounds that people come from, that sometimes what is actually really needed is not prescriptive feedback, but very clear. This is what I like specifically about this, and this is why I like it, and this is why I think it works because in my mind, those are the questions that you already know the answer to because you’ve presented it to me. But that was not me being a great leader in that. I could have literally had a conversation about it, you know, as opposed to not thinking that I was like, yes, go off, be free. That was probably, but I didn’t understand that. And I think as a creative, like creative leadership is actually being able to to be self-aware and understand the audience, ’cause the audience is your creative team. It’s also your cross-functional team. It’s also your boss. Like there are so many different audiences for leadership that there is not a one-size-fit-all way to lead.

Adam Morgan

What I think I’m hearing is that the big role of the creative leader is to create a vision. Like it’s really to create a path of what you like and what’s good and what where we want to go, so that they can self-select along the way, with coaching to get there.

Donna Lamar

Yeah, I think that’s really, yeah, vision is very important. You know, what is the vision and also I think, “why this vision?” You know, like ’cause vision, I mean, it’s the world like vision changes with the world. Or with actually not even the world, it can change with the next day, frankly — what is important or why we’re doing something. I do think the thing that is consistent if you’re working with a brand or product or anything, which has been consistent for the whole of my career, is what is the unique thing that your brand or your product can bring that that someone else can’t? And that’s a hard question. 

Adam Morgan: And you as a leader to what’s your unique creative identification that you can bring to that as well, right?

Donna Lamar

Yes, exactly. 

Adam Morgan

Like how do we blend those two in order to create that? Well, it seems like that’s kind of the role then as a creative leader is to go out, not just. You’ve built up your creative ID over the years, you’ve figured out what, what’s good and bad and what you stand for. And now you’re working in these companies and these brands and you’re trying to fuse all that together and look for the vision of where you can go, but also make sure that your creative ID is there to help get it there, whether you’re quiet and you do it one way or you’re more charismatic. I think all of that coming together is really. We as creative leaders, we just need to work on that part. We need to make sure that we’re understanding who we are and also still leading for a a common vision.

Donna Lamar

I think it’s very complex, you know, because at the end of the day, we’re all people and we all feel a particular thing or a certain thing, and that thing that we’re feeling is part of our identity. And then if your identity is quite literally linked to your creative identity — and it is — you have to make sure that what’s personal to you is not actually harming the work that you’re doing, right?

Adam Morgan

Mm-hmm.

Donna Lamar

Because there’s, that’s the other side of it. You know, right now I’m talking all like, I’m I’m I’m I’m always on the positive, lofty side of things, but, but there is also a scenario where we think that our creative identity and our way of being and showing up is the right way. And it, and I don’t, I hate using the terms right and wrong, but, but it may not be the best way. 

Adam Morgan

Mm-hmm. 

Donna Lamar

To accomplish whatever, the work is meant to accomplish.

Adam Morgan

I guess that’s what gives us the flavor of life, like in different companies and teams and brands. Find the one that fits you — right?

Donna Lamar

Yeah, find the one. I think that’s the best advice. Like you can always find your audience.

Adam Morgan

How you can always find your brand that you wanna

Donna Lamar

Yes.

Adam Morgan

You all stand up for. Well, this has been amazing, Donna, but I just wanna bring everyone back to what we’ve been talking about. In this episode, we’ve been talking about creative identity and why it matters so much because it facilitates the kind of focus and confidence in yourself and in your own personal brand that the work requires. Second, with a creative identity creatives feel purpose driven. Once they know who they are, they feel like they can go out and they can make great work and they can make a dent in the world. And then finally, we talked about creative leadership. How creative leaders who foster this great creative identity help brands become better and become beacons to themselves. So it’s not just a matter of being a great leader, but how do you help foster that in others so that we all are knowing who we are and what we stand for and putting all of it into the work. So I think it’s a really interesting topic, but, there’s been a lot of good to think about here in terms of I think of some applications of, for those who are listening of like “here I am in this certain spot.” Maybe there’s a company that I don’t believe in. What do I do about it? Or maybe you’re like, I’m stuck in my career. What can I do? Well, start developing your creative identity a little bit more, and not worrying so much just about your work or the checklist you’ve gotta get done, or, you know, maybe, you’re thinking longer term, where do I wanna end up in this world? It’s like, yeah, what, what are the big, long term creative milestones you want to hit and how are you pushing towards, that bigger identity, that bigger brand that you’re gonna put out in the world and, and make people think of you differently. So I think there’s a lot of interesting things to think about when we take this concept of creative identity and how we can put it into practice. So Donna, what are your final thoughts? What should our listeners take away from today’s conversation on creative identity?

Donna Lamar

I would like people to take away the fact that you should never really be finished with your creative identity. It should be something that is fluid in emotion all of the time, and you should not be afraid to ask for whatever you might need that might help you flourish.

Adam Morgan

Yeah, yeah. Those are wise words. Thank you, Donna. That’s, that’s extremely interesting and something that we all can just think about of like how we attack, our next creative leadership problem.