Creative Leadership Model:

Elements of Creative Leadership Which Promote Innovative Performance on Diverse Teams

Introduction to Creative Leadership

In the 21st century, “global competition, new production techniques, and rapid technological change have placed a premium on creativity and innovation.” (Mumford, 2002, 705) Today’s organizations are seeking innovative solutions to complex, ambiguous problems and many view Creative Leadership as the answer.

Organizations desire Creative Leaders in order to solve “wicked problems” (IDEO), navigate through our complex, ever-changing world, and to motivate diverse teams to produce creative output. According to Nystrom (1990), there is evidence that creativity and innovation yield growth and profits, appealing greatly to organizational capitalistic motivations.

Studies have also shown that diverse teams generate more creative results. Writer and brand strategist, Arwa Mahdawi, mentioned a few statistics on this topic during her TEDx Talk titled The Surprising Solution to Workplace Diversity. She referenced the McKinsey study which showed how radically diverse teams outperform non-diverse ones by 35%. Additionally, teams were men and women were equal earned 41% more revenue.

Ultimately, we can theorize that diverse teams partnered with and guided by creative leadership would be the ideal pairing to meet the needs of our 21st century organizations.

Creative Leadership incorporates a vision-based approach and uses transformational and charismatic leadership styles as a way to “enhance creativity and innovation through motivation and intellectual stimulation.” (Mumford, 2002, 715) Additionally, creative leadership roles require long term orientation, risk-taking and ability to navigate ambiguity. The leader must also demonstrate subject knowledge, culture intelligence and adaptable communication styles in order to build trust and motivation on diverse teams. When the power distance is low, optimal collaboration can occur in order to foster creativity, innovation and failure (we’ll talk about the value of failure later on).

For this model I would like to investigate the elements of Creative Leadership mentioned above which influence collective creativity and innovation on diverse teams. For our purposes, “diversity” here can be defined as individuals “with different experiences, backgrounds and perspectives.” (Peterson, 2016)

Visionary, Charismatic & Transformational

Within leadership discourse, we see Creative Leaders functioning within the classic ‘new leadership’ realm of visionary, charismatic, and transformational.

Transformational leaders stimulate and inspire their followers to achieve extraordinary outcomes and “inspire followers to change expectations, perceptions, and motivations to work towards common goals” (Cherry, 2020). This typically happens through intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration and idealized influence.

Charismatic leaders are skilled communicators; “individuals who are both verbally eloquent, but also able to communicate to followers on a deep, emotional level," says Ronald E. Riggio, Ph.D. Some characteristics of charismatic leaders are confidence, great communication skills, determination, compassion, creative-thinkers, and vision.

Visionary leadership is forward thinking, risk-taking and strategic. These leaders envision what the future looks like, strategize how to get there, understand the risks involved and are willing to take them, willing to try new things, and are able to lead their team in the direction of their vision. However, some question the amount of influence and relevance of visionary leadership within a creative firm. “The reason being that creative people are already motivated autonomous entities where the imposition of an external vision seems, if anything, to inhibit performance.” (Mumford, 2002) Instead, a Creative Leader should focus on increasing engaging motivation through involvement, participation and a meaningful mission. (Farris, 1971; Keller, 1997).

Alex Gorsky, CEO of Johnson & Johnson, believes effective leaders are able to recognize their own approach to leadership and know how to inspire, motivate and manage diverse teams. He says, “One of the most important things a leader can do is to influence a team to help them achieve things they perhaps didn’t think they were capable of as individuals… Having diversity of thought, approach and thinking, and being inclusive in making sure everyone feels they can make a meaningful contribution to the ultimate outcome, are some of the most important things that you as a leader can do.” (Peterson, 2016)

Ultimately, Creative Leaders must adapt their leadership styles in order to meet the unique needs of the organization and team. The leader provides the strategic vision and pathway while also focussing on creating the ideal work environment which fosters creative output. The employee is afforded certain freedoms and simultaneously supported by their superiors. It is also suggested by Mumford that a likely key role of leaders in this paradigm is to “help creative people define problems in terms of organizational needs and goals.” (Mumford, 2002, p. 714) The leader is responsible for maintaining the delicate balances between reducing stress and ambiguity while “simultaneously maximizing challenge and risk taking,” encouraging exploration while ensuring timely execution, encouraging individual initiative while promoting teamwork. The leaders are responsible for their follower’s sense of “autonomy, curiosity and professional focus.” (Mumford, 2002, p. 719)

Subject Knowledge & Cultural Intelligence

Mumford et al. proposed a few key characteristics in their model for creative leaders such as expertise, planning and sense making, and social skills. One element I would like to point out is “expertise,” which I will equate with “subject knowledge”.

It is imperative that creative leaders demonstrate and share the subject knowledge (expertise) and creative problem solving skills of their employees. Sharing in expertise serves as a form of social influence and builds confidence and credibility with a leader. Without technical expertise and creative problem solving skills, leaders will find it rather difficult to represent their group, provide meaningful feedback on the work and will struggle to communicate effectively with their team members.

Additionally, Cultural Intelligence and developing a Global Mindset is critical for creative leaders as they lead increasingly more diverse teams. As Professor Hirshorn mentioned in her lecture, “Diversity leads to creativity and stronger, more integrative perspectives, but it can also lead to conflict and impact performance. The goal is to manage diversity well in order to create a high performing team.” There are four competencies for leading diverse teams: Develop a global mindset, establish trusted support networks, practice verbal and nonverbal communication skills, and develop multiple leadership styles.

Six steps for developing a global mindset (Hirshorn, 2020):

Recognize your own cultural biases and preferences
Appreciate that other cultures have different values & behaviors from your own
Learn to recognize culturally-based behaviors
Learn about the cultures of the people you are working with
Develop personal strategies to adjust to different cultural styles
Be open to continuous learning and diversity appreciation

Long Term Orientation, Risk & Ambiguity

Creative Leaders with a long term orientation, whom take risks and successfully navigate ambiguity will inspire more creative and innovative work on diverse teams.

One dimension on the Hofstede Scale is Uncertainty Avoidance. This expresses the degree to which people feel uncomfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity. Cultures with strong uncertainty avoidance have rigid codes of belief and behavior and are intolerant of unorthodox behavior and ideas. Weak uncertainty avoidance societies maintain a more relaxed attitude in which practice counts more than principles. It is this ambiguity that can be a challenging hurdle to innovative problem-solving.

Today’s world presents many complex and ill-defined challenges and a creative leaders’ ability for planning and sense making is a vital skill. This ability to tackle ambiguity head on aids in defining problems and implementing structure to achieve the tasks at hand. Mumford also suggests that “... leaders’ planning skills are an important influence on the work of creative people.” (Mumford, 2002, p. 716)

A weak uncertainty avoidance, in theory, should promote more creative and innovative solutions as there is less intolerance for unorthodox ideas.

Associated with uncertainty and ambiguity is risk. “… indeed, most creative efforts are risky ventures.” (Mumford, 2002) The risk attached to creative work also requires excitement to experiment and an embrace of failures. “… leaders must reduce stress and ambiguity, while simultaneously maximizing challenge and risk taking.” (Mumford, 2002)

A number of studies have attempted to identify the climate and culture dimensions that contribute to creativity and innovation (idea generation and implementation). Some variables shown to influence people’s willingness to initiation creative efforts include: risk taking, freedom, work challenge, openness, trust, support, intellectual orientation, intrinsic involvement, and activity/experimentation.

Additionally, future-oriented creative leaders with a Long Term Pragmatic Orientation (Hofstede) tend to align with more Innovative team performance. This will be discussed more in-depth in the country comparison section.

Trust Building, Motivation & Communication Styles

It is critical for Creative Leaders to build trust, motivate and adapt their communication styles.

Building Trust can require a different approach when working with individuals from different cultures. In some cultures, trust is built based on proven ability over time. In others, trust is based upon interpersonal relationships. It is also important to understand that communication styles vary across cultures. This relates to the concept of high and low context cultures. In High Context cultures, people tend to need to establish an interpersonal relationship in order to build trust. In Low Context cultures, people tend to build trust based on proven ability over time.

Additionally, it is important to understand how trust functions in individualistic and collective societies. For example, more individualistic cultures such as the US and UK tend to show more spontaneous trust - General Trust. Alternatively, collectivist cultures such as Japan show more reciprocal trust towards those they have establish a relationship with - Assurance Based Trust.

According to Tan Hwee Hoon, an associate professor of organizational behavior & human resources at SMU’s Lee Kong Chain School of Business, there are three factors which help build cross-cultural trust: Ability (high competency), Benevolence (they will back you up), and Integrity (reliable). It is important to note that these factors may vary across cultures. However, the end goal is the same. Trust is important in organizations in order to create Psychological Safety. Psychological safety is key to people being creative, sharing ideas, and collaborating. Higher trust yields happier, less-stressed employees who are more productive and motivated.

According to the Motivating People and Building Trust reading, there are high and low trust cultures. Low-trust cultures such as China, France, Mexico and the Latin and Arab countries completely trust those they know best, such as family and lifetime friends, and have limited trust of outsiders. High-trust cultures such as Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Japan, Germany, and other Nordic countries tend to have a ready trust for their compatriots. With a linear-active view, they generally trust until someone is proved untrustworthy. There is also a medium-trust category which aligns with cultures such as Britain and the US (Lewis, 2005).

Recommended trust-building strategies:

Set clear, transparent aims and goals
Prepare clear instructions
Communicate with them effectively
Insist on an information-sharing policy
Provide practical, user-friendly tools
Set up time-efficient processes
Recognize contributions
Back up the “team”
Act on the team’s recommendations
Work toward transparency

“the leader’s role is to identify and focus on the team’s common values and beliefs to get everyone pulling in the same direction.” “World-class teams are both diverse in their perspectives and unified in sharing a common goal and purpose,” says Professor Peterson. Additionally, it is important to consider the outcomes and whether they are affective or achievement based. “Affective outcomes are critical to diverse teams, because some people want to feel involved while others need to believe they are doing something important.” (Peterson, 2016)

Motivation plays a major role in employee productivity, retention and revenue. Engaged workers are 50% more likely to exceed expectations than unengaged workers. Companies with engaged workers see 54% higher retention, 89% higher customer satisfaction and 400% greater revenue. The sad fact is that only a mere 13% of employees worldwide are engaged with their work. The solution to increasing employee motivation is not so simple, but a few points can be made. First, a working knowledge of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs will aid in achieving higher levels of employee satisfaction and happiness. The lower levels account for existential needs (food, water, shelter, etc.) while the mid-levels account for safety, stability and health. The next level is the pursuit for a sense of belonging (social relationships). Once all these levels are achieved, a leader and/or employee can focus on the top level of Maslow’s hierarchy: self-actualization and realizing personal potential. This level is the need for achievement or “mastery,” esteem and reputation, autonomy and independence.

To achieve the top level of Maslow’s hierarchy of need, a leader must intrinsically motivate their employees. To be intrinsically motivated means that a person will pursue certain actions that will likely result in happiness without a push from others. Steve Jobs said, “If you are working on something that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.” In Shaping the Global Leader, authors Biggs, Bussen and Ramsey recommend for organizations to get out of the way while creating the conditions for natural, intrinsic motivation to drive their employees beyond the middling levels of the hierarchy. (Biggs, Bussen & Ramsey, 2020)

In order to encourage creative performance, a leader must possess the necessary social abilities in coaching, communication skills, and persuasion. Additionally, communicating clear output expectations, objectives and providing clear feedback have been found to aid in generating creative work.

It is also important to understand and adapt communication styles. Considering Edward T. Hall's high and low context cultures we should be aware of the following:

Indirect - High Context Cultures

The main purpose of communication is establishing relationships and interpretation of messages heavily rests on contextual clues.
It's important to establish trust through interpersonal relationships
They tend to be collectivist, preferring group harmony and consensus to individual achievement
Words are not as important as context. Consider tone of voice, facial expression, gestures, posture, etc.

Direct - Low Context Cultures

The purpose of communication is exchanging information
An emphasis is put on the written and spoken word. What is mean is what is said.
People value logic, facts, directness.
Tend to be logical, linear, individualistic and action-oriented.
Communicators are expects to be straightforward, concise, and efficient in telling what action is expected.

Power Distance & Collaboration

In this Creative Leadership paradigm, the followers are dependent on leaders for guidance and intervention, but the relationship between the leader and follower is harmonious, collaborative and symbiotic; The two work together to achieve a mutual goal within the organization. This would be a low power distance, one of the dimensions on the Hofstede Scale.

Power Distance is the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally. This is usually reflected in the hierarchical organization of companies.

According to Fontaine, “In low power distance cultures responsibility for decisions is more distributed among team members. Though the leader is still primarily responsible, others expect to and are often trained and paid to assist in that process, and can be resentful if they are not given that opportunity.” Alternatively, high power distance cultures believe the leader is expected to make decisions and other team members are not expected to, trained to, paid to, and usually do not appreciate being asked to make decisions.

One company that has successfully used a low power distance is Pixar Animation Studios. Ed Catmull, one of the founders, explains Pixar’s organizational culture in his book Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration. Pixar adopted a policy what there must be freedom to communicate with everyone. “We do not confuse organization structure with communication structure…“

“You get great creative people, you bet big on them, you give them enormous leeway and support, and you provide them with an environment in which they can get honest feedback from everyone”

Another factor is to value collaboration by embracing collectivism over individualism. The team should see themselves in terms of “we” over “i.” The organizational mission is not achieved by one individual alone but by a team of individuals. Ed Catmull explains, “People tend to think of creativity as a mysterious solo act, and they typically reduce products to a single idea … A movie contains literally tens of thousands of ideas. They’re in the form of every sentence; in the performance of each line; in the design of characters, sets, and backgrounds; in the locations of the camera; in the colors, the lighting, the pacing… The director and the other creative leaders of a production do not come up with all the ideas on their own; rather, every single member of the 200- to 250-person production group makes suggestions…”

Creativity, Innovation & Failure

Not only must Creative Leaders foster environments to generate creativity and innovation, but they must rethink “failure” as an opportunity.

Instead of ignoring failures, Creative Leaders should foster “intelligent failure,” a term coined by Duke University’s Sim Sitkin in a 1992 Research in Organizational Behavior article titled “Learning Through Failure: The Strategy of Small Losses.” If your organization can adopt the concept of intelligent failure, it will become more agile, better at risk taking, and more adept at organizational learning. “(Harvard Business Review)

Creative leadership has a significant influence on the climate and culture of an organization. Tactics used by leaders may include “defining a culture and climate consistent with the needs of creative people,” telling stories of past accomplishments to further emphasize their desired climate variables, or by rewarding and recognizing the efforts of creative people and avoiding punishments for failures or risk taking. Lastly, leaders may also choose to frame “decisions in terms of climatic variables shaping creativity and innovation” such as openness, challenge and trust. (Mumford, 2002, p. 733)

It is also important to embrace change. “Things never stay the same. In fact, they’re not supposed to stay the same, they’re supposed to change,” says Ed Catmull. It is best to make a culture to respond creatively and positively as changes happen.

Here are a few more inspiring quotes:

“In a fear-based, failure-averse culture, people will consciously or unconsciously avoid risk. They will seek instead to repeat something safe that’s been good enough in the past. Their work will be derivative, not innovative. But if you can foster a positive understanding of failure, the opposite will happen.”
- Ed Catmull

“If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.”
- Woody Allen

“In a world that’s changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.”
- Mark Zuckerberg

“In my experience, each failure contains the seed of your next success - if you are willing to learn from it.”
- Paul Allen

Comparison of Cultural Investigations

In this course, I investigated Colombia, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Morocco, South Korea, and New Zealand. For this comparison, I would like to see if there is any correlation between Hofstede’s Six Dimensions and Bloomberg’s Innovation Index.

Bloomberg releases a yearly “innovation index” ranking the 60 most innovative economies worldwide. This index measures patent activity, tertiary efficiency, manufacturing value-added, productivity, high-tech density, and researcher concentration. According to the Index, here are how my investigated countries rank (Bloomberg, 2020):

South Korea - 2nd
Switzerland - 4th
Czech Republic - 24th
New Zealand - 29th
Colombia - not listed in the top 60
Morocco - not listed in the top 60

The Hofstede Model of National Culture evaluates countries on the following six dimensions: Power Distance, Individualism versus Collectivism, Masculinity versus Femininity, Uncertainty Avoidance, Long Term Orientation versus Short Term Normative Orientation, and Indulgence versus Restraint. This comprehensive study reveals how values in the workplace are influenced by culture. Below is a chart comparing my selected countries. There are ordered according to their rankings on the Innovation Index.

When cross comparing the Hofstede Dimensions with the Bloomberg Innovation Index, we can see a correlation between Innovation and Long Term Orientation.

Long Term Orientation describes how each society decides to maintain some links with its own past while dealing with the challenges of the present and future (Hofstede). Societies who score low on this dimension prefer to maintain traditions and norms while viewing societal change with suspicion. On the other hand, societies who score high on this dimension take a more pragmatic approach: they encourage thrift and efforts in modern education as a way to prepare for the future. In a business context, this dimension is referred to as “(short-term) normative versus (long-term) pragmatic” (PRA). Here we can see that South Korea has the highest Long Term Orientation and are also ranked 2nd on the Innovation Index. The date for the other countries matches perfectly as well. It seems we can conclude there is a definite correction between Long Term Orientation and Innovative societies.

My original theory was that countries with weak Uncertainty Avoidance would have a more relaxed attitude to welcome unorthodox behaviors and ideas, therefore generating more creativity and innovation. However, the data from this particular Hofstede Country Comparison does not appear to validate this theory.

Another possible correlation could be deduced by comparing country perceptions of time with the Innovation Index. David Victor classifies business cultures as either monochronic or polychronic, depending on how time is viewed (Goodman, 2013). In general business sense, Monochronic cultures will do one thing at a time while Polychronic cultures will multiple things as the same time.

Monochronic countries include New Zealand and the German-speaking parts of Switzerland. South Korea was considered polychronic in the past but has become more clock-conscious and moderately monochronic. Czech Republic would also be considered monochronic, although it was not specifically listed in the Goodman reading. Characteristics of monochronic business cultures include:

personal relationships are subordinate to schedules
appointment times are rigid
tasks are measured by how long they take
work time is clearly separated from personal time
time is perceived as inflexible and tangible

Polychronic countries include most of Latin America (Colombia) and the Arabic-speaking nations (Morocco). Characteristics of polychronic business culture include:

schedules are subordinate to personal relationships
appointment times are flexible
tasks are measured as part of the organization’s larger goals
work time and personal time are not clearly separated
time is perceived as flexible and fluid

It is my conclusion that having a long term pragmatic orientation and a monochronic business culture perception of time are contributing factors in more innovative societies.

References

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Biggs, H., Bussen, T., & Ramsey, L. (2020). Shaping the global leader: Fundamentals in culture and behavior for optimal organizational performance. New York, NY: Routledge.

Catmull, E., & Linda A. Hill Greg Brandeau Emily Truelove Kent Lineback. (2019, February 25). How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity. Retrieved October 07, 2020, from https://hbr.org/2008/09/how-pixar-fosters-collective-creativity

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Lewis, R. D. (2005). Chapter 9 Motivating People and Building Trust. In When cultures collide: Leading across cultures. Boston, MA: Nicholas Brealey Publishing (pp.141-151)

Mumford, M. D., Scott, G. M., Gaddis, B., & Strange, J. M. (2002). Leading Creative People: Orchestrating Expertise and Relationships. Leadership Quarterly, 13, 705–750.

Nystrom, H. (1990). Organizational innovation. In M. S. West, & J. L. Farr (Eds.), Innovation and creativity at work: psychological and organizational strategies (pp. 143–162). New York: Wiley.

Peterson, R. (2016). FOUR STEPS TO LEADING DIVERSE TEAMS EFFECTIVELY. London Business School Review, 27(3), 40–43. https://doi.org/10.1111/2057-1615.12140

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