Creativity is a Leader’s Secret Weapon

Tudor Rickards & Susan Moger

Running, almost unnoticed,through the histories of leaders..

..has been the story of their creativity

…is a link between Leadership and Creativity

Studies at Manchester Business School have established a clear link between effective leaders and their skills at encouraging creative change..

Creative Leaders Release Creativity in Self and Others

The leader’s secret weapon is the application of creativity, directed towards releasing more creativity in others

Leader Creativity

Creativity

Benignstructures

Creativity

Creativity

Creativity

Creativity

TeamFactors

Working and Theoretical Definitions

Working definitions are provided here for creativity, leadership, creative leadership and benignstructures These definitions are adequate for explaining a new idea, or for‘starting a conversation’

Conceptually richer definitions are required for building and exploring theory

Working definitionsCreativity: The process which generates new andvaluable ideas

Leadership: The process directed towards influencing the actions and achievementsof a wider group

Creative leadership: The process which generates new and valued ideas directed towards influencing thoseactions and achievements

Benign Structures: Procedures through which groups achieve valued improvements in performance

Early Views of Leadership

…Society and circumstances create leaders

A supreme being creates human leaders

More Recent Views of Leadership

(Great) Leaders create (great) changes in their worlds …

Leaders and social systems co-create one another(We create ‘the leaders we deserve’)

Creative Leadership:The MBS studies (1980s-2008)

MBA project team studies (1980s-2000)

Longitudinal studies (1999 - )

Leadership data base (2006 -)

Manchester Business School (West)

Project Team Leadership and The Manchester Method

The Project Team studies were part of an educational innovation known as The Manchester Method

MBA teams ‘learn while doing’business projects’

Team tutors began to recognise consistent patterns of success and failure

Three Kinds of Team?

A small proportion of teams struggled (‘Teams from Hell’)

The majority of the teams achieved the goals set them(‘Standard Teams’)

Another minority performed beyond expectations(‘Dream Teams’)

?

Earlier theories did not predict the observed results ..

Team development theory (Tuckman) suggests that all teams share a common pattern of development

Leadership models (Stogdill) favour two leadership styles(consideration for people, initiating structures)

New leadership proposes two different leadership Factors (transactional/ transformational styles)

A Leadership Theory Emerged

It proposed two barriers to team success

Leaders created new and benign structures for action and change

The theory identified seven team factors associatedwith team success

How the Two-barrier ProposalModifies Team Development

Theory

Form

Storm

Norm and Perform

Outperform

Dysfunctionalteams

Standardteams

Outstandingteams

Weak behaviouralbarrier

Strong performancebarrier

The role of Benign Structures in Creative Leadership

Creative leaders help reconfigure the structures under which team members operate.

Team-building structures overcome inter-personal barriers and establish team norms

In a ‘dream team’, leadership provides structures which transcendestablished norms

More about Benign Structures

MBS project leaders introduced benign structures based on lateral thinking approaches, versions of brainstorming, mindmapping and ‘Yes and’ invitations (encouragement of positivity)

More research is required on benign structures in other kinds of situations and teams

The Seven Team FactorsInfluenced by Creative Leadership

CreativeLeadership

Platform of understanding

Vision

Climate

Idea Ownership

Resilience

Network activators

Experientiallearning

On-going research into Creative Leadership at MBS

Longitudinal Studies (1999-2008)Extended studies of exceptional leaders

The Leadership Data Base (2006-8)The 300 stories are of leadership events such as corporate transformations and crises from the worlds of business, sport and politics.

ConclusionsLeadership and creativity are more closely linked than has previously been believed

Leaders set up benign structures through which teams and groups achieve unexpectedly creative results

The findings, mostly from project teams,may have more universal relevance