Ever since the days when I was writing Weird Ideas That Work, I have been careful to point out various ways that creative people suffer in comparison to their less imaginative counterparts. My focus has been largely on the differences between doing creative and routine work (see this post on why creativity and innovation suck). Much theory and research suggests a long list, including:
1. Creativity requires failing most of the time; routine work entails succeeding most of the time. So doing creative means screwing up constantly, while doing routine work means you are usually doing things right and well. As Diego and I like to say, failure sucks but instructs.
2. Creativity involves constant conflict over ideas, although that can be fun when it is done right, even the most healthy groups struggle to avoid having conflict over the best ideas turn very personal and very nasty.
3. Creativity is messy,scary, and inefficient. Routine work is clean, comforting and efficient.
4. Doing creative work right means generating a lot of bad ideas, it also means that most of your good ideas will get killed-off too.
I could go on and on. But the best quote I have ever seen on the probabilities and emotions associated with doing creaitive work is from James March (I quote this in Weird Ideas That Work), quite possibly the most prestigious living organizational theorist. Rumor has it that he has come fairly close to winning the Nobel Prize in Economics once or twice:
"Unfortunately, the gains for imagination are not free. The protections for imagination are indiscriminate. They shield bad ideas as well as good ones—and there are many more of the former than the latter. Most fantasies lead us astray, and most of the consequences of imagination for individuals and individual organizations are disastrous. Most deviants end up on the scrap pile of failed mutations, not as heroes of organizational transformation. . . . There is, as a result, much that can be viewed as unjust in a system that induces imagination among individuals and individual organizations in order to allow a larger system to choose among alternative experiments. By glorifying imagination, we entice the innocent into unwitting self-destruction (or if you prefer, altruism)."
I don't mean to bring you down even further, but a study with more bad news for creativity -- actually an academic paper containing three intertwined studies -- just came out by Assistant Professor Jennifer Mueller at the University of Pennsylvania. It is called "Recognizing creative leadership: Can creative idea expression negatively relate to perceptions of leadership potential?" The upshot is that people who are seen as more creative are judged by others as having LESS leadership potential than their unimaginative peers UNLESS they are also seen as charismatic.
This bias against creative people is first demonstrated in their study of employees of a company in India who were in jobs where they were expected to do creative work. It was then replicated in a controlled experiment, with about 200 students, half of whom were assigned to be idea generators or "pitchers" and half to be "evaluators." The pitchers were then divided into two groups. As the researchers, they were asked to either '1) prepare a creative (novel and useful) or 2) a useful (but not novel) solution to the following question: “What could an airlines do to obtain more revenue from passengers?"'
The results are pretty troubling. In short, although the judges saw no significant differences in the usefulness of the ideas generated, and did construe that subjects who were instructed to generate creative ideas did, in fact, come up with more creative ideas than those instructed to come-up with ideas that were not novel, the judges also consistently construed the more creative subjects as having less leadership potential, measured with this 3-item scale: “How much leadership would this applicant exhibit?”, “How much control over the team’s activities would this member exhibit?”, “I think the applicant is an effective leader.” (α = .86).
The bright spot, or perhaps the warning, is that, int he third study, where the "charismatic leader prototype was activated" (this was done by asking judges to list five five characteristics of a charismatic leader), things changed. Here is how the researchers described their findings from this third study: "when the charismatic prototype was activated, participants rated the candidate in the creative idea condition (M = 4.08) as having significantly higher leadership potential than the candidate in the useful idea condition (M = 3.41; t = -3.68, p < .01). Conversely, when the charismatic prototype was not activated, participants rated the candidate in the creative condition (M = 3.08) as having significantly lower leadership potential than the candidate in the useful condition (M = 3.60; t = -2.03, p < .05)."
BNET asked first author Mueller to explain these findings, and I thought she came-up with a pretty good answer:
'Muller notes that leaders must create common goals so their groups can get things done. And the clearer goals are, the better they tend to work, which means leaders need to root out uncertainty. One way leaders can do this is to set standards and enforce conformity. But when asked to describe a creative person, words like “quirky,” “nonconformist” and “unfocused” often take their place right alongside “visionary” and “charismatic.” Says Mueller: “The fact is, people don’t just feel positively about creative individuals-they feel ambivalent around them.”'
Yes, this is one just paper. But it is done carefully and uses multiple methods. And it is instructive as I do think -- and there is evidence to show -- that our stereotypes of the hallmarks of creative people do often see at odds with our beliefs of great leaders. In particular, to add to Mueller's list, creative people are also often seen as inner focused (not just unfocused), inconsistent, and flaky. That is not the boss that most of us want. It is also interesting that charisma seems to be the path to being seen as both creative and having leadership potential. It certainly has worked for the likes of Steve Jobs, Francis Ford Coppola, IDEO's David Kelley, and Oprah Winfrey.
This research suggests that if you are a creative type, and want to lead, do everything you can to get your boss and other evaluators thinking about charisma -- "activate" the charismatic leader prototype by talking about well-known charismatics, and perhaps engaging in actions congruent with the "prototype" of a charismatic person -- articulate, inspiring, setting forth an emotionally compelling vision, and touching on themes and stories that provoke energy and passion in others.
On the other hand, there are plenty of successful creatives who have achieved leadership positions who seem to lack at leasst some of these qualities -- Mark Zuckerburg, Bill Gates, David Packard, and Bill Hewlett come to mind. And there are still other successful creatives who led wonderful and important lives despite having little if any interest in leading others -- Steve Wozniak and Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman appear to qualify. Indeed, although we need great leaders, it seems to me that -- especially at this moment in history -- we need creative people even more.
To me, the upshot is that these findings are intriguing and some people may find them useful -- especially creatives who are trying to get leadership jobs. But it also strikes me that presenting a false front usually backfires in the end, and perhaps the most important implication is that, if you are in a position to judge and select leaders, keep reminding yourself that you will probably be unfairly biased against creative people -- unless you think they are charismatic (or you are just thinking about charisma), in which case you may be giving those creatives too much credit for their leadership potential!
I love a careful and creative study like this one. No it is not perfect or the final word, no study is or can be, but it is pretty damn good. If you want to read the whole thing, here is complete reference, including a link to the PDF:
Jennifer Mueller, Jack Goncalo, Dishan Kamdar (2011), Recognizing creative leadership: Can creative idea expression negatively relate to perceptions of leadership potential?, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
I think that it's odd that many people equate creativity with flakiness. It seems that when people think of "creative people," they tend to think of visual artists, which I think is unfair to people who are creative in a variety of non-artistic ways.
In one of my Engineering Management classes, the instructor asked the class of working engineers how many thought of themselves as creative. Only about 1/4 of the class raised their hands. I was disappointed to see this. When the instructor asked why people didn't think of themselves as creative, they mostly indicated that engineers need to be practical. They saw being practical as the opposite of being creative.
Frankly, I think that any engineer that's not creative doesn't offer much value. A computer can solve any problem that doesn't require creativity. I've found that an engineer is truly adding value when they attack a difficult and novel problem and solve it using creativity.
I think that anyone who has a challenging job that requires solving novel problems must be creative to be successful. Unfortunately, it seems that many people have come to see "creativity" as a dirty word that is the opposite of "practicality", which I think is absolutely wrong.
Posted by: Kevin Rutkowski | April 12, 2011 at 01:52 PM
I love creative people, but you are right. In the business world they are seen as quirky or flakey. They march to a beat of a different drummer. They are independent and don't comply to the social norms. Creative people are needed though to challenge the status quo and our thinking.
Posted by: Kenneth | April 02, 2011 at 05:26 PM
CareerAnnie brings up an excellent point. It makes sense that charisma might be acting as a proxy for the ability to translate ideas into actions. Highly successful ‘creative leaders’ generally share the ability to bring their concepts to fruition with astonishing efficiency. It seems to me that this is the common thread between Jobs and Gates. I'd be curious to see a follow-up study that looked deeper into this possibility.
Posted by: Benjamin | March 15, 2011 at 06:50 AM
Creativity requires failing most of the time; routine work entails succeeding most of the time. So doing creative means screwing up constantly, while doing routine work means you are usually doing things right and well.if failure comes it has to be considered as a part of success.
Posted by: Gaston Cantens | March 15, 2011 at 02:56 AM
It is interesting if a little disappointing that creative people face these kinds of bias and misconceptions in the professional world. It is a good reminder to keep our own biases and stereotypes in check. Thanks!
Posted by: Gillian | March 11, 2011 at 08:52 AM
Probably true, but since creativity is its own reward, I'm not bothered too much.
Posted by: Adam's Myth | March 08, 2011 at 08:54 PM
Thanks for this. It makes a lot of sense. The world does need more creatives, but they won't be traditional leaders. The freedom to see and act differently is usually related to a feeling of 'not caring' what others think. Creatives choose freedom over influence again and again. Sometimes that makes them influential.
Posted by: Julia Stewart | March 08, 2011 at 09:15 AM
Bob,
the Muller study confirms my own observations as a consultant. There are a couple of implications I see (apart from perhaps trying to broaden people's conception of leadership). One is how we can create alternative internal career paths in organizations for creatives (e.g., technology experts). Another is how creative people can learn to "sell" their ideas to leaders who may not share their own cognitive style.
Posted by: Nicolay Worren | March 08, 2011 at 07:27 AM
This study made me uncomfortable, which is usually an indication that it is challenging my previous perspective. I get the charisma angle, but for me, it has a slightly different description. I think passion is the only thing that sells, so a creative type who is passionate about the possibilities of her creation is bound to attract followers. If the same creative leader is not as strong when it comes to producing the new idea, she can still be the leader if she uses her passion to enroll others with better production skills to the effort.
Posted by: Joe Marchese | March 08, 2011 at 06:41 AM
Wow, this, added to an HBS working paper last month highlighting a potential aptitude for creative people to cheat and demonstrate unethical behaviors -using a research methodology and assumptions that could be questioned-, puts quite a curse on creatives!
I'm quite surprised though that the research you refer to does not mention the fact that creatives usually challenge status quo -the very definition of creativity- which is naturally something that non creatives may worry about... but quite useful to lead our businesses out of the 20th century and into the 21st!
Posted by: Helene | March 07, 2011 at 10:15 PM
thank you for pointing out this study. I cant agree more that there need to be more creative people to come up with solutions to the worlds problems, and to develop new products and technology.
Posted by: Greg | March 07, 2011 at 03:02 PM
This is somewhat disappointing, although it's not entirely unexpected. Perhaps there is another element to personality that most creative people lack that Jobs has. Specifically, I would bet that translating the creative burst into action items is probably the hardest. Creative people like to dream up new ideas, but they often lack the follow-through to get them done.
Just a theory.
Posted by: CareerAnnie | March 07, 2011 at 02:24 PM
This reminds me of research written up by Carli & Eagly in "Women & Leadership" (http://www.amazon.com/Women-Leadership-Strategies-Change-Warren/dp/0787988332/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1299531765&sr=8-2 )... in that the stereotype of what makes a good leader remains the more "manly" example, while the truth is studies show that what proves more productive/successful is the more stereotypically female ways of leadership. Non-creative has long="business minded"... and my, my... how old news that is. As well, it also reminds me of Warren Bennis' work wherein he says that managers surrender to the context while leaders master it (and that doesn't mean they are above it). It is great to see these things really being more openly discussed, because there seem to be some hugely underutilized clues to developing leadership in the 21st Century. It'll be exciting to get "on it."
Posted by: Andrea Learned | March 07, 2011 at 01:07 PM