How do you move past challenges, even when constraints are tight and solutions are elusive? It’s all about supporting rather than managing, and showing grit, resilience, and optimism, even after several rounds of prototypes, or the realization it’s time to start asking new questions. Here are four ways to maintain momentum as you address a design challenge.

In our most recent Creative Confidence Series chat, Charles Hayes, Executive Managing Director of IDEO Asia, and IDEO U Dean Suzanne Gibbs Howard discussed creative leadership and a changing culture of innovation in China.

Try this activity to build trust among your teammates and uncover the skills and perspectives you can each bring forward.

We’ve all been there. Excited about a great idea and ready to run with it, but it gets squashed by the leadership team before it can ever see the light of day. So what do you do when the verdict on an innovative new concept is a no?

Keith Yamashita, SYPartners Chairman and Founder and instructor for our newest class From Superpowers to Great Teams, sat down with IDEO U Managing Director Coe Leta Stafford to discuss creative leadership and how great teams are built on a foundation of diversity, collaboration, trust, and self-awareness.

Brendan Boyle, Founder of the IDEO Toy Lab and a contributing instructor in our Unlocking Creativity class, has a knack for helping others insert more creativity and playfulness into their work. He recommends that you start every meeting with a creative workout to elevate the energy in the room. Here’s a simple activity in imagination play that Brendan uses to get the team into a more creative headspace.

Reflective self-awareness is the entry point to creative leadership. Being comfortable with not knowing the answers, learning from failure, and collaborating with others different from yourself are essential to creativity, and they all involve a healthy dose of self-awareness. Here are two actionable ways to put yourself in a reflective mode, and to help you discover the role you were meant to play, in your career and as a leader.

As Tim Brown says, old school models of leadership are not enough anymore. Top-down mandates and telling people what to do doesn’t lead to the creativity and innovation that allows modern companies to make an impact. Instead, leadership is about generating, embracing, and executing bold ideas—”even when the path is not clear.” And that all starts with asking questions.

If you’re a leader, chances are, you got to this point by showing results and having the right answers. But your next mission (should you choose to accept it) is to work on executing bigger and bolder ideas. In fact, it’s no secret that we all have to do this. We constantly have to move good ideas up the chain of command and into the market so that our organizations thrive and have an impact. To do this, one tip Tim Brown recommends is to make your ideas fitter so they can thrive.

Facing change isn’t always easy—especially when it’s a competitor taking market share, a start-up suddenly disrupting the space, or a product becoming obsolete. IDEO partners with clients spanning a wide range of industries to develop the organizational structures, culture, and behaviors that drive their success, and ultimately to build creative capabilities within these companies so they can continue to innovate and adapt.

The sad truth is that working life can often make us put on an armor that hides our own humanity and distances us from that of our colleagues. And when we lose touch with our humanity — when we replace empathy with efficiency, when we get curt instead of curious — it’s a surefire way to get stuck.