The Work Buzz's Latest News: Are creative types less likely to land leadership positions? |
Posted: 02 Mar 2011 09:18 AM PST  Chances are, if you've looked for work in the past few years, you've come across more than one job listing calling for an "out-of-the-box" thinker. While this term certainly falls into the overused jargon category, it is true that companies are increasingly placing value on creative types.According to a recent survey of 1,500 CEOs conducted by IBM's Institute for Business Value, creativity was seen as the most important indicator of successful business leadership. Unfortunately, though, it seems that when it comes to creativity, the business world is a lot quicker to talk the talk than it is to walk the walk. In a new report called "Recognizing Creative Leadership: Can Creative Idea Expressions Negatively Relate to Perceptions of Leadership Potential?" to be published in the March 2011 issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, researchers found that people often see creative types and leadership types as being mutually exclusive. The results of each of the three studies conducted by the researchers for the report were conclusive: Although study participants consistently claimed to value creative ideas, they were also less likely to believe in the management potential of those who expressed them. So why is it that people have such a hard time viewing these highly touted out-of-the-box thinkers as management material? According to the study, it may have something to do with our pre-conceived ideas about these two types of people. Consider this: The job of a leader is to provide direction, purpose and clarity. Theoretically, then, a good manager should be able to offer concrete, actionable and well-communicated ideas to a group of people. At the same time, as a general stereotype, "creativity is often associated with uncertainty, nonconformity, unorthodoxy and unconventionality," according to the study, all of which can create a sense of ambiguity – an idea that completely contradicts the traditional qualities most associated with leadership. Therefore, despite the ever-increasing need for creative solutions in today's business world, the findings of the study suggest that "organizations may face a bias against selecting the most creative individuals as leaders in favor of selecting leaders who would preserve the status quo by sticking with feasible but relatively unoriginal solutions." So will there ever be a shift in the leadership paradigm? According to an article on the website for the Wharton School of Business, where one of the study's authors, Jennifer Mueller, is a professor, if companies value creativity and innovation, then it's up to them to break their leadership stereotypes. "Many companies want to be creative and they just don't know what they are doing wrong," she said. “Companies need to think about this issue and their performance appraisal systems should be changed accordingly.” Do you think that creative people make good leaders? Are you an innovative leader? Tell us about it in the comments section, below.  |
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