Adam Hosfal: Creative Leadership is a Craft

Adam Hosfal is the GM of advertising at Innocean Australia, bringing over 20 years of experience in leading integrated campaigns and driving impactful marketing solutions, with a decade spent in the UK honing his expertise on globally recognised brands. Since joining Innocean in 2023, Adam has taken charge of the Hyundai account, overseeing the delivery of strategic and creative campaigns that connect with audiences and deliver measurable results.

Adam’s expertise spans multi-channel marketing, digital innovation, and customer experience across industries such as automotive, finance, and telco. He is passionate about delivering fully integrated solutions, combining creativity, media and strategy with the right technological tools to enhance customer engagement and drive business growth.

LBB> What was your first experience of leadership?

Adam> I'd have to say, my mum. As a single mother raising my sister and me with limited resources, looking back, it felt like leadership in its purest form. The resilience and determination left a mark I didn't fully grasp until much later. And it's only when you view it through the lens of becoming a parent yourself that a whole new level of respect comes into play.

As for when I first assumed a leadership role myself? I think those early circumstances shaped things sooner than I realised. I was a bit of a brat, but taking people with me, on whatever the journey happened to be, seemed to come naturally.

LBB> How did you figure out what kind of leader you wanted to be – or what kind of leader you didn’t want to be?

Adam> The latter probably came first. I’ve worked with a real mix of leaders, from the throwing-the-fax-machine-out-the-window agency owner to the overbearing micromanager, and then some all-round exceptional leaders.

Unfortunately, it seems much easier to identify the faults in someone’s leadership style, especially when you’re on the receiving end. The qualities behind a great leader can be much more nuanced, and it took me a little longer to tease out exactly what those qualities were.

Decisiveness and integrity stood out early as consistent hallmarks that I greatly respected, but above all else, regardless of their style, it became very clear that being simply approachable and open were invaluable qualities of a leader. Be a good human first.

LBB> Did you know you always wanted to take on a leadership role? If so, how did you work towards it, and if not, when did you start realising that you had it in you?

Adam> Consciously, no. Instinctively, yes. I was always the kid organising the party, starting the band, trying to form whatever version of a gang seemed appropriate at the time. I just liked bringing people together around something. It's only looking back that I recognise that as the same instinct I bring to building teams now. The setting changes, the impulse remains.

LBB> What experience or moment gave you your biggest lesson in leadership?

Adam> Like many of us, it was Covid.

I was working in London when the first lockdown hit. In that very first week, we lost our biggest account. The two events were entirely unrelated, but the timing was brutal. What followed was a wave of redundancies, restructures, and all the unpleasantness of that period, conducted entirely remotely while everyone was still figuring out what the "new normal" meant.

At the same time, we were significantly growing the BT account. I was concurrently responsible for transitioning a large portion of new business into the agency, which meant a new team, new clients, new processes, and a new boss. To be completely candid, many of those pieces were broken, and it was all happening through a screen.

Personally, my partner and I had been preparing to move back to Australia; the house was sold, and our London life was wrapped up, only to be put on hold indefinitely.

There are times during a crisis when you feel completely useless as a leader because you don't have the ready-made answers or guidance. It taught me that you won’t always have the keys to fix everything immediately, but just listening, being present, and steadying those around you is enough.

LBB> When it comes to 'leadership' as a skill, how much do you think is a natural part of personality, how much can be taught and learned?

Adam> There's undoubtedly a mix, but I'd push back slightly on the idea that it's almost entirely nurture, which seems to be the fashionable answer right now. I've met people early in their careers who had something you couldn't teach. A quality of presence, an instinct for reading a room, a natural gravitational pull. You either have some version of that, or you don't.

That said, raw instinct without the hard skills is just charisma, and charisma without substance is dangerous. I've seen plenty of so-called "born leaders" wreak havoc because nobody ever taught them how to have a difficult conversation or manage under pressure.

The craft of leadership absolutely has to be learned.

So both. But I'd be dishonest if I said I've never looked at someone early in their career and thought, they've got it. That thing you can't quite name but you absolutely recognise. The craft still has to be learned, but some people make that journey look inevitable.

LBB> What aspects of leadership do you find most personally challenging? And how do you work through them?

Adam> Managing the tension between wanting to be liked and needing to be direct. It sounds simple, but it's one of the most common places leaders quietly come unstuck. I've had to learn that being respected and being liked aren't always the same thing, and that the most important conversations are often the ones you least want to have.

LBB> Have you ever felt like you've failed whilst in charge? How did you address the issue and what did you learn from it?

Adam> Absolutely. There is no one-size-fits-all, blanket approach to managing people. If you find yourself in unfamiliar territory, dealing with a genuinely fucked up situation that you wouldn’t wish on anybody, you learn that it’s okay to put your hand up. Addressing it means having the humility to seek an outside opinion or additional support.

LBB> In terms of leadership and openness, what’s your approach there? Do you think it’s important to be as transparent as possible in the service of being authentic? Or is there a value in being careful and considered?

Adam> Total transparency is a mistake, and honestly, it’s often just lazy leadership. There is a massive difference between being authentic and dumping all your stress onto your team. If I pass every client panic, financial squeeze, or boardroom argument directly down to my team in the name of 'honesty', I’m not being transparent; I’m just offloading my own anxiety because I can't carry it.

My approach is to be completely transparent about the facts of where we stand, but highly considered and protective when it comes to the panic. Don’t get me wrong, we all need a good vent, but a team needs stability to do great work. Your job as a leader is to process the noise, absorb the hits, and give your team a clear, calm space to focus. Be approachable and real, but remember that you are there to protect them, not treat them as an emotional sounding board.

LBB> As you developed your leadership skills did you have a mentor, if so who were/are they and what have you learned? And on the flip side, do you mentor any aspiring leaders and how do you approach that relationship?

Adam> While I've never had a mentor or mentored others in a formal sense, I've been incredibly fortunate to work for some brilliant leaders who bestowed invaluable guidance.

I have a great relationship with my current boss, Jasmin Bedir. The immense trust she places in me, our leadership team, and the broader agency has taught me everything about the power of autonomy. You cannot underestimate the potential unlocked when you let people find their own way and make a few mistakes along the way.

Barbara Waite taught me some hard truths about myself and how to navigate the sharks.

And Sam Hawkey gave me some of the most valuable foundational skills of account management as a discipline.

I like to think I'm paying all of that forward now, quietly nurturing the next generation coming through.

LBB> In continually changing market circumstances, how do you cope with the responsibility of leading a team through difficult waters?

Adam> You cope by letting go of the idea that you can predict what’s coming next, and focusing entirely on keeping the team moving. When the market shifts daily, trying to map out a rigid, long-term strategy is pointless.

If you freeze up because you’re waiting for 100% certainty or the perfect dataset, you’ll drown. I cope by making decisions quickly, with whatever information I have on hand, accepting that some of those calls will be wrong, and being prepared to pivot fast. A team will easily forgive a leader who says, "We tried this, the circumstances changed, so now we are moving this way." They will never forgive a leader who paralyses them by refusing to make a call at all. Momentum is a good cure for anxiety.

LBB> As a leader, what are some ways you’ve prioritised diversity and inclusion within your workforce?

Adam> For me it always comes down to virtue and attitude first. If you bring the right energy, perspective and drive, I can teach you the hard agency skills later. We are in the business of creativity and people. And the best ideas come from the widest range of lived experience.

I know what it's like to fight to get a foot in the door. Someone took a chance on me early, and I've never forgotten it. Our industry can be deeply superficial and self-selecting. I'm not interested in where someone went to school or who their parents are. I'm interested in what they're made of.

My direct team at Innocean is very diverse. They're tight, collaborative, and have each other's backs in a way that's genuinely rare. I'd like to think that's not a coincidence. They’re an exceptional team.

LBB> How important is your company culture to your business's success? And how have you managed to keep it alive amid increases in remote and hybrid work?

Adam> We all know culture is not a vibe you can manufacture with a nice office, an open bar, and a flexible work policy. For me, culture is in many ways the reality of how your people actually treat each other and make decisions when things get difficult.

The role of culture is intrinsic to how Jas leads the business; it isn’t just important to our success, I’d say it is our success. The number of times I’ve had new starters come up to me and say they aren’t quite sure what it is yet, but they just love coming to work, is proof of that.

I personally don’t think remote and hybrid setups are solely responsible for radically changing agency culture. I put the shift down to changes in human priorities and to what the next generation of leaders deems a healthy, balanced environment.

We’re all still collectively grasping what that looks like in the long term, and some are handling it better than others. If your agency's culture relies entirely on everyone sitting in the same room so you can monitor them, the culture was broken to begin with. If you focus less on monitoring desk locations and more on mutual trust and respect, the culture begins to take care of itself. I’ve seen a lot of incredible talent and opportunity go to waste in this industry simply because that baseline trust and respect wasn’t there.