The 7 Da Vincian Principles: How to Innovate Like Leonardo da Vinci
By Jimmy Brown, Ph.D. | | 7 Min Read
One of the most persistent questions in business is how to maintain innovation over time. Not the one-time breakthrough, but the sustained creative capacity that produces new ideas consistently. People who maintained this capacity across decades are worth studying.
Among history’s most enduringly innovative minds, Leonardo da Vinci stands apart. Known primarily as a painter, famous for the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, he was more accurately a polymath, working as an architect, sculptor, musician, mathematician, engineer, anatomist, geologist, cartographer and botanist. In his 1998 book, How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci, author Michael Gelb identified seven principles that defined da Vinci’s approach to learning, creativity and life.
Benedictine University’s online Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.) program develops this kind of innovative thinking in working professionals. Coursework trains students to evaluate new ideas, bring them to market and scale them with confidence.
The 7 Da Vincian Principles
Each of the 7 Da Vincian Principles addresses a different dimension of how da Vinci learned, observed and created, from raw curiosity to physical stamina to the ability to see patterns across disciplines.
Professionals who put these into deliberate practice can develop that same range of thinking in their own leadership. The sections below define each principle and translate it into a specific leadership competency.
1. Curiosità (Insatiable Curiosity)
Curiosità is an insatiable curiosity about life and an unrelenting commitment to continuous learning. Da Vinci filled thousands of notebook pages with questions and observations because he couldn’t stop noticing things. Virtually every successful innovator describes themselves as a voracious learner. Curiosità is what drives that.
Applied to business leadership: Cultivate the habit of asking “why” and “what if” rather than “how do we keep doing this.” Leaders who remain curious tend to spot market shifts, identify talent and generate new approaches that those locked into existing assumptions miss.
2. Dimostrazione (Learning Through Experience)
Dimostrazione is the commitment to test knowledge through experience, persistence and willingness to learn from mistakes. It is the scientific method applied to everyday life. WD-40 is a well-known example: the product that worked was the 40th formulation, not the first.
Applied to business leadership: Experiment deliberately. Treat failed approaches as data rather than defeats. Organizations that build iterative testing into their processes learn faster and adapt more effectively than those that treat every initiative as a high-stakes commitment.
3. Sensazione (Sharpening the Senses)
Sensazione is the continual refinement of the senses to deepen experience and awareness. In organizational terms, this connects to active listening. Passive listening, being physically present while mentally preparing your next response, is one of the most common failures in professional communication.
Applied to business leadership: Practice full-spectrum attention. In meetings, customer conversations and competitive intelligence gathering, the most important information is often communicated indirectly. Leaders who sharpen their sensory awareness catch signals others miss.
4. Sfumato (Embracing Ambiguity)
Sfumato, which literally means ‘going up in smoke,’ is the willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox and uncertainty. As the old saying goes, the only two things certain in business are uncertainty and change. Leaders who require certainty before acting are perpetually behind the curve.
Applied to business leadership: Develop comfort with incomplete information. The best strategic decisions are often made with 60–70% of the information you’d prefer to have. Leaders who act effectively in ambiguous conditions create significant competitive advantage.
5. Arte/Scienza (Balancing Art and Science)
Arte/Scienza integrates logic and imagination, or whole-brain thinking. Da Vinci saw no contradiction between rigorous scientific investigation and extraordinary artistic expression. Imagination without logic produces daydreams. Logic without imagination produces stagnation.
Applied to business leadership: Resist the tendency to compartmentalize analytical and creative thinking. The most innovative organizational decisions combine data-grounded analysis with the creative leap that sees what the data can’t yet show.
6. Corporalità (Maintaining Physical Vitality)
Corporalità is the principle of maintaining a healthy body as a foundation for a healthy, creative mind. Da Vinci believed, and modern cognitive research supports, that physical fitness supports mental performance. Chronic physical neglect diminishes creative output, sustained concentration and sound judgment are all diminished.
Applied to business leadership: The relationship between physical well-being and professional performance is not peripheral to leadership. It is foundational. Leaders who sustain energy, clarity and resilience over long careers treat physical health as a professional responsibility.
7. Connessione (Seeing the Connections)
Connessione is recognizing the interconnectedness of all things and phenomena. Innovation is rarely the creation of something entirely new. More often, it is recognizing a connection between existing things that no one had previously noticed.
Applied to business leadership: The most valuable organizational insight often crosses domain boundaries. Leaders who read broadly, engage with diverse teams and remain curious about fields beyond their own specialization are better positioned to make the connection that becomes the next product, process or strategic advantage.
Why the Da Vincian Principles Matter for Modern Business
The seven principles map onto the capabilities contemporary research identifies as central to organizational innovation, including curiosity and continuous learning, experimentation and resilience, deep attention, tolerance for ambiguity, integrative thinking, sustainable personal performance and cross-domain pattern recognition. The most innovative companies and leaders tend to embody these principles as a natural orientation rather than a formal practice. Gelb’s framework leaves a simple question. Which of these principles am I developing, and which am I neglecting?
Benedictine University’s online Master of Business Administration program builds these capabilities into its curriculum, pairing core coursework in strategy, finance and operations with optional concentrations in change management, digital marketing, project management or talent management. Faculty bring decades of corporate leadership experience into the classroom, translating principles like Curiosità and Connessione into practical, career-ready skills.
Employers increasingly want this kind of integrative, human-centered judgment. The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) reports that employers continue to value business graduates for skills such as communication, leadership and sound judgment even as artificial intelligence reshapes entry-level hiring, and the payoff shows up in pay as well. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports a median annual wage of $126,520 for management occupations as of May 2025, well above the $50,980 median across all occupations.
Develop Innovative Leadership Skills With an Online M.B.A. From Benedictine
Innovation is not a talent some people are born with and others are not. Da Vinci was extraordinarily gifted, but Gelb’s framework shows that his approach to learning, observation and problem-solving can be studied, practiced and developed.
The seven principles are disciplines, not endowments. For business professionals seeking to develop the innovative leadership capacity that drives organizational growth, Benedictine University’s online M.B.A. program provides the strategic frameworks and leadership curriculum to put these principles into practice.
Learn more about Benedictine University’s online M.B.A. program.
Frequently Asked Questions
The following questions address the seven principles at a glance and how they translate into everyday business practice. Use them as a quick reference before applying the framework to your own leadership development.
What are the 7 Da Vincian Principles?
Curiosità (curiosity), Dimostrazione (learning through experience), Sensazione (sensory awareness), Sfumato (embracing ambiguity), Arte/Scienza (balancing logic and imagination), Corporalità (physical vitality) and Connessione (seeing interconnections). Identified by Michael Gelb in his 1998 book How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci.
How do the Da Vincian Principles apply to business?
Each principle maps onto a specific leadership or innovation capability. Curiosità drives continuous learning, Dimostrazione supports iterative experimentation and Sensazione develops active listening. Sfumato builds tolerance for uncertainty, Arte/Scienza supports integrative thinking and Corporalità sustains executive performance. Connessione enables cross-domain innovation.
What is Sfumato?
The Da Vincian principle of embracing ambiguity, paradox and uncertainty. The term comes from an Italian painting technique da Vinci used to create soft, blurred transitions, reflecting his comfort with things that resist sharp resolution.
About Benedictine University’s Online M.B.A. Program
Benedictine University’s online M.B.A. program prepares working professionals for leadership across business disciplines, including innovation, operations, marketing and strategic management. The program requires no GMAT or GRE score for admission and is delivered in flexible eight-week terms designed for working adults.
Founded in 1887 by the monks of St. Procopius Abbey, Benedictine University is a Catholic institution in Lisle, Illinois, with a tradition of academic excellence spanning more than 130 years. The university is ranked among the Best Regional Universities in the Midwest by U.S. News & World Report and serves a global community of more than 44,000 alumni, with small class sizes that let students build close relationships with faculty and peers throughout the program.
About the Author
Jimmy Brown, Ph.D. is a senior level management consultant with eighteen years of experience leading efforts to develop and implement practical strategies for business performance improvement. Dr. Brown has held senior level consulting positions at leading firms such as Booz-Allen & Hamilton, Accenture and Hewlett-Packard.
