Excerpt from A-CHIEVE! (June 2011)

In last month’s “Top 3 Forward-Looking Global Trends” article, cultivating creative leaders was identified by 707 Chief Human Resource Officers across 61 countries as the #1 challenge facing organizations as they compete in the dynamic global marketplace (IBM’s 2010 “Working Beyond Borders” Study). 

In this issue, we were initially going to examine how cutting edge organizations aggressively develop their creative leadership bench strength. While conducting our research, Cornell University ILR School’s study “Recognizing Creative Leadership: Can Creative Idea Expression Negatively Relate to Perceptions of Leadership Potential?” (2010) caught our attention. Their statistically-driven and evidenced-based approach revealed the following three ‘Creative Idea Pitcher’ (aka Idea Pitchers) and ‘Leadership Potential Evaluator’ (aka Evaluators) outcomes:

Study 1: Idea Pitchers who presented creative (novel) and useful ideas were perceived as having less leadership potential by the Evaluators in a sample study involving employees working in jobs that required creative problem solving.

Study 2: Idea Pitchers who were presenting creative (novel) and useful ideas were perceived as being competent by the Evaluators, but having less leadership potential than Idea Pitchers who were presenting useful (but not novel) ideas.

Study 3: Idea Pitchers who were presenting creative (novel) and useful ideas were perceived as having leadership potential when the Evaluators were introduced to a ‘charismatic leadership’ definition (nonconformist and unique) prior to assessing the Idea Pitchers.

The study’s first conclusion…all things being equal, creative employees who are perceived as being charismatic ‘have a leg up’ on creative employees who are not perceived as being charismatic. In fact, being creative but not charismatic is a promotional liability. Why would that be the case?

The reality…organizations are not as receptive to filling leadership positions with creative thinker candidates even though, according to the study’s author, Jennifer Mueller, “There is research that shows that those who have their own creative ideas are open to them and know how to get creative ideas through [the organization].” Per Mueller “It is not easy to select creative leaders…it takes more time and effort to recognize a creative leader than we might have previously thought.” Mueller believes that negative creativity bias is fueled by traditional leadership philosophies. “The value that leaders bring to groups is in creating common goals so the group can achieve something. And goals are better the clearer they are – you don’t want uncertainty. So leaders need to diminish uncertainty and create standards of behavior for everyone in the group. And they create those standards by conforming to them.” But the negative bias doesn’t stop there.  Leveraging academic literature, Mueller found that creative people are labeled ‘quirky’, ‘unfocused’ and ‘non conformist’ in addition to being perceived as ‘visionary’ and ‘charismatic’. Mueller concluded “The fact is people don’t feel positive about creative individuals – they feel ambivalent about them.” The net result is that original thinkers may be overlooked “…in favor of selecting leaders who would preserve the status quo by sticking with feasible but relatively unoriginal solutions.”

The challenge…those leaders who were promoted based on their status quo styles “…now find themselves in a world that has vastly changed, one that requires much more creative responses and thinking” per Mueller. It’s no wonder that cultivating creative leaders was identified as the #1 hurdle facing organizations given the pervasive stereotypical barriers that are not generally recognized, understood or proactively addressed by most organizations.

What’s the solution? Mueller suggests that organizations consider the following:

How do you break through stereotypes? The very first step is to build awareness among your organization’s leadership ranks plus develop and execute an actionable plan. We recommend constructing executive/senior leader working sessions that are designed to:

Where do you start? We’ve compiled the following creative leader characteristics and traits that you may wish to introduce during your working sessions – creative leaders:

Check out this article plus more in A-CHIEVE! (June 2011).